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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/824-0.txt b/824-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..515cd8c --- /dev/null +++ b/824-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9880 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Speeches of Charles Dickens, by Charles +Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Speeches of Charles Dickens + Literary and Social + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: December 18, 2014 [eBook #824] +[This file was first posted on March 1, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1880 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + +SPEECHES +_LITERARY AND SOCIAL_ + + + BY + CHARLES DICKENS + + WITH CHAPTERS ON “CHARLES DICKENS AS A LETTER WRITER, + POET, AND PUBLIC READER.” + + [Picture: Drawing of Charles Dickens] + + _A NEW EDITION_ + + London + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + 1880 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +CHARLES DICKENS was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. +At that time his father, Mr. John Dickens, held an office in the Navy Pay +Department, the duties of which obliged him to reside alternately at the +principal naval stations of England. But on the conclusion of peace in +1815 a considerable reduction was made by Government in this branch of +the public service. Mr. John Dickens, among others, was pensioned off, +and he removed to London with his wife and children, when his son Charles +was hardly four years of age. + +No doubt the varied bustling scenes of life witnessed by Charles Dickens +in his early years, had an influence on his mind that gave him a taste +for observing the manners and mental peculiarities of different classes +of people engaged in the active pursuits of life, and quickened a +naturally lively perception of the ridiculous, for which he was +distinguished even in boyhood. + +It is curious to observe how similar opportunities of becoming acquainted +practically with life, and the busy actors on its varied scenes, in very +early life, appear to influence the minds of thinking and imaginative men +in after-years. Goldsmith’s pedestrian excursions on the Continent, +Bulwer’s youthful rambles on foot in England, and equestrian expeditions +in France, and Maclise’s extensive walks in boyhood over his native +county, and the mountains and valleys of Wicklow a little later, were +fraught with similar results. + +Charles Dickens was intended by his father to be an attorney. Nature and +Mr. John Dickens happily differed on that point. London law may have +sustained little injury in losing Dickens for “a limb.” English +literature would have met with an irreparable loss, had she been deprived +of him whom she delights to own as a favourite son. + +Dickens, having decided against the law, began his career in “the +gallery,” as a reporter on _The True Sun_; and from the first made +himself distinguished and distinguishable among “the corps,” for his +ability, promptness, and punctuality. + +Remaining for a short term on the staff of this periodical, he seceded to +_The Mirror of Parliament_, which was started with the express object of +furnishing _verbatim_ reports of the debates. It only lived, however, +for two sessions. + +The influence of his father, who on settling in the metropolis, had +become connected with the London press, procured for Charles Dickens an +appointment as short-hand reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_. To this +period of his life he has made some graceful and interesting allusions in +a speech delivered at the Second Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, +about five years ago. + +It was in _The Monthly Magazine_ of January, 1834, before he had quite +attained his twenty-second year, that Charles Dickens made his first +appearance in print as a story-teller. {7} Neither the editor of the +magazine, nor the readers, nor even the ardent and gratified young author +himself (who has described in the preface to the “Pickwick Papers” his +sensations on finding his little contribution accepted), then dreamt that +he would become in five short years from that time one of the most +popular and widely-read of English authors, that his name would shortly +become familiar as a household word, and that his praise would be on +every tongue on both sides of the Atlantic. + +Encouraged by his success, Charles Dickens continued to send sketches in +the same vein, and for the next twelve months was a tolerably constant +contributor to the _Magazine_. All, or nearly all, of these little +papers were reprinted in the collection of _Sketches by Boz_; but as it +will perhaps be interesting to some of our readers to trace their +original appearance in the magazine, we give a list of them here:— + +February, 1834, Horatio Sparkins. + Marriage a-la-Mode. +April „ The Bloomsbury Christening. +May „ The Boarding-House. +August „ _Ibid._ (No II.) {8a} +September „ The Goings-on at Bramsby Hall. +October „ The Steam Excursion. +January, 1835. Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. +February „ _Ib._ Chapter Second. + +A similar series was afterwards contributed to the evening edition of +_The Morning Chronicle_, {8b} then edited by Mr. John Black, and on which +Dickens was engaged as parliamentary reporter. + +While writing the “Sketches,” a strong inclination towards the stage +induced Mr. Charles Dickens to test his powers as a dramatist, and his +first piece, a farce called _The Strange Gentleman_, was produced at the +St. James’s Theatre on the opening night of the season, September 29, +1836. The late Mr. Harley was the hero of the farce, which was received +with great favour. This was followed by an opera, called _The Village +Coquettes_, for which Mr. Hullah composed the music, and which was +brought out at the same establishment, on Tuesday, December 6, 1836. The +quaint humour, unaffected pathos, and graceful lyrics of this production +found prompt recognition, and the piece enjoyed a prosperous run. _The +Village Coquettes_ took its title from two village girls, Lucy and Rose, +led away by vanity, coquetting with men above them in station, and +discarding their humble, though worthy lovers. Before, however, it is +too late they see their error, and the piece terminates happily. Miss +Rainforth and Miss Julia Smith were the heroines, and Mr. Bennet and Mr. +Gardner were their betrothed lovers. Braham was the Lord of the Manor, +who would have led astray the fair Lucy. There was a capital scene, +where he was detected by Lucy’s father, played by Strickland, urging an +elopement. Harley had a trifling part in the piece, rendered highly +amusing by his admirable acting. + +On March 6, 1837, was brought out at the St. James’s Theatre a farce, +called _Is She His Wife_; _or_, _Something Singular_, in which Harley +played the principal character, Felix Tapkins, a flirting bachelor, and +sang a song in the character of Pickwick, “written expressly for him by +Boz.” + +Under the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks Charles Dickens published about +this time a wholesome, wise, and cleverly written little pamphlet against +Sabbatarianism, in which he cogently and forcibly advocated more liberal +views respecting the observance of Sunday than generally obtain in this +country. {10} + +In March, 1836, appeared the first number of “Pickwick,” with +illustrations by Seymour. It was continued in monthly shilling numbers +until its completion, and this has been Mr. Dickens’s favourite and usual +form of publication ever since. The success and popularity of the +work—which, in freshness and vigour, he has never surpassed in his later +and maturer writings—were unmistakeable. Several playwrights dramatised +it, with more or less success; and a swarm of obscure scribblers flooded +the town with imitations and sequels, which, like Avanelleda’s second +part of “Don Quixote,” came mostly to grief, and were quickly forgotten. + +Before the work had reached its third number, the talented artist who had +undertaken the illustrations, and who has immortalised the features of +Mr. Pickwick, was unfortunately removed by death, and Mr. Hablot Browne +(the well-known _Phiz_) was chosen to replace him, and continued to +illustrate most of Mr. Dickens’s novels for many years after. During the +years 1837–1838, Mr. Dickens carried on the editorship of _Bentley’s +Miscellany_, where his novel of “Oliver Twist” (illustrated by George +Cruikshank) first appeared. To this magazine, during the time that he +conducted it, he also contributed some humorous papers, entitled “Full +Report of the Meetings of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of +Everything.” But, finding his editorial office irksome, he soon +abandoned it. + +During his engagement with Mr. Bentley, he edited and partly wrote the +“Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” {11} a book now almost forgotten, though +not without passages of pathos and humour. Dickens, in the introductory +chapter (dated February, 1838), gives the following account of his share +in the work:— + + “For about a year before his death, Grimaldi was employed in writing + a full account of his life and adventures, and as people who write + their own lives often find time to extend them to a most inordinate + length, it is no wonder that his account of himself was exceedingly + voluminous. + + “This manuscript was confided to Mr. Thomas Egerton Wilks, to alter + and revise, with a view to its publication. While he was thus + engaged, Grimaldi died; and Mr. Wilks having, by the commencement of + September (1837), concluded his labours, offered the manuscript to + Mr. Bentley, by whom it was shortly afterwards purchased. + + “The present editor of these volumes has felt it necessary to say + thus much in explanation of their origin. His own share in them is + stated in a few words. Being much struck by several incidents in the + manuscript—such as the description of Grimaldi’s infancy, the + burglary, the brother’s return from sea, and many other passages—and + thinking that they might be related in a more attractive manner, he + accepted a proposal from the publisher to edit the book, and _has_ + edited it to the best of his ability, altering its form throughout, + and making such other alterations as he conceived would improve the + narration of the facts, without any departure from the facts + themselves.” + +His next work was “Nicholas Nickleby,” published in monthly numbers. The +following passage from the original preface, which is only to be found in +the old editions, alludes to the great success that attended this story:— + + “It only now remains for the writer of these pages, with that feeling + of regret with which we leave almost any pursuit that has for a long + time occupied us and engaged our thoughts, and which is naturally + augmented in such a case as this, when that pursuit has been + surrounded by all that could animate and cheer him on—it only now + remains for him, before abandoning his task, to bid his readers + farewell.” + +This was followed by “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” the publication of which, +in weekly numbers, with illustrations by Cattermole and Hablot Browne, +was commenced in April, 1840. “Master Humphrey’s Clock” comprised the +two novels of “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby Rudge,” which are now +published in a separate form, stripped of the introductory portion +relating to Master Humphrey, and of the intercalary chapters in which Mr. +Pickwick and the two Wellers appear again on the scene. It was pleasant +to meet once more these familiar humorous creations, and it may be a +matter for regret that this portion of the book has been consigned to +oblivion. But the author considered that these passages served only to +interrupt the continuity of the main story, and they were consequently +eliminated. + +These three characters (the Wellers and Mr. Pickwick) have all the same +raciness and inexhaustible humour in this sequel as in the work in which +we were first introduced to them. As the original edition of the work we +are alluding to is now somewhat rare, the reader may not be displeased to +have a few specimens laid before him. Here is Mr. Weller senior’s +opinion of railways:— + + “I con-sider,” said Mr. Weller, “that the rail is unconstitootional + and an inwaser o’ priwileges, and I should wery much like to know + what that ’ere old Carter as once stood up for our liberties and wun + ’em too—I should like to know wot he vould say if he wos alive now, + to Englishmen being locked up with widders, or with anybody, again + their wills. Wot a old Carter would have said, a old Coachman may + say, and I as-sert that in that pint o’ view alone, the rail is an + inwaser. As to the comfort, vere’s the comfort o’ sittin’ in a harm + cheer lookin’ at brick walls or heaps o’ mud, never comin’ to a + public house, never seein’ a glass o’ ale, never goin’ through a + pike, never meetin’ a change o’ no kind (horses or othervise), but + alvays comin’ to a place, ven you come to one at all, the wery picter + o’ the last, vith the same p’leesemen standing about, the same + blessed old bell a ringin’, the same unfort’nate people standing + behind the bars, a waitin’ to be let in; and everythin’ the same + except the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the + last name and vith the same colors. As to the _h_onour and dignity + o’ travelling vere can that be vithout a coachman; and wot’s the rail + to sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a + outrage and a insult? As to the pace, wot sort o’ pace do you think + I, Tony Veller, could have kept a coach goin’ at, for five hundred + thousand pound a mile, paid in adwance afore the coach was on the + road? And as to the ingein—a nasty wheezin’, creaking, gasping, + puffin, bustin’ monster, alvays out o’ breath, vith a shiny green and + gold back, like a unpleasant beetle in that ’ere gas magnifier—as to + the ingein as is alvays a pourin’ out red hot coals at night, and + black smoke in the day, the sensiblest thing it does in my opinion, + is, ven there’s somethin’ in the vay and it sets up that ’ere + frightful scream vich seems to say, ‘Now here’s two hundred and forty + passengers in the wery greatest extremity o’ danger, and here’s their + two hundred and forty screams in vun!’” {15} + +While Mr. Pickwick is listening to Master Humphrey’s story above, the +Wellers are entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen, where they +find Mr. Slithers, the barber, to whom Sam Weller, drawing extensively we +may suppose upon his lively imagination, relates the following anecdote:— + + “I never knew,” said Sam, fixing his eyes in a ruminative manner upon + the blushing barber, “I never knew but von o’ your trade, but _he_ + wos worth a dozen, and wos indeed dewoted to his callin’!” + + “Was he in the easy shaving way, sir,” inquired Mr. Slithers; “or in + the cutting and curling line?” + + “Both,” replied Sam; “easy shavin’ was his natur, and cuttin’ and + curlin’ was his pride and glory. His whole delight wos in his trade. + He spent all his money in bears and run in debt for ’em besides, and + there they wos a growling avay down in the front cellar all day long, + and ineffectooally gnashing their teeth, vile the grease o’ their + relations and friends wos being re-tailed in gallipots in the shop + above, and the first-floor winder wos ornamented vith their heads; + not to speak o’ the dreadful aggrawation it must have been to ’em to + see a man alvays a walkin’ up and down the pavement outside, vith the + portrait of a bear in his last agonies, and underneath in large + letters, ‘Another fine animal wos slaughtered yesterday at + Jinkinson’s!’ Hows’ever, there they wos, and there Jinkinson wos, + till he wos took wery ill with some inn’ard disorder, lost the use of + his legs, and wos confined to his bed, vere he laid a wery long time, + but sich wos his pride in his profession even then, that wenever he + wos worse than usual, the doctor used to go down stairs and say, + ‘Jinkinson’s wery low this mornin’; we must give the bears a stir;’ + and as sure as ever they stirred ’em up a bit, and made ’em roar, + Jinkinson opens his eyes if he wos ever so bad, calls out, ‘There’s + the bears!’ and rewives agin. Vun day the doctor happenin’ to say, + ‘I shall look in as usual to-morrow mornin’,’ Jinkinson catches hold + of his hand and says, ‘Doctor,’ he says, ‘will you grant me one + favor?’ ‘I will, Jinkinson,’ says the doctor. ‘Then, doctor,’ says + Jinkinson, ‘vill you come un-shaved, and let me shave you?’ ‘I + will,’ says the doctor. ‘God bless you,’ says Jinkinson. Next day + the doctor came, and arter he’d been shaved all skilful and reg’lar, + he says, ‘Jinkinson,’ he says, ‘it’s wery plain this does you good. + Now,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a coachman as has got a beard that it ’d + warm your heart to work on, and though the footman,’ he says, ‘hasn’t + got much of a beard, still he’s a trying it on vith a pair o’ viskers + to that extent, that razors is christian charity. If they take it in + turns to mind the carriage wen it’s a waitin’ below,’ he says, ‘wot’s + to hinder you from operatin’ on both of ’em ev’ry day as well as upon + me? you’ve got six children,’ he says, ‘wot’s to hinder you from + shavin’ all their heads, and keepin’ ’em shaved? You’ve got two + assistants in the shop down-stairs, wot’s to hinder you from cuttin’ + and curlin’ them as often as you like? Do this,’ he says, ‘and + you’re a man agin.’ Jinkinson squeedged the doctor’s hand, and begun + that wery day; he kept his tools upon the bed, and wenever he felt + his-self gettin’ worse, he turned to at vun o’ the children, who wos + a runnin’ about the house vith heads like clean Dutch cheeses, and + shaved him agin. Vun day the lawyer come to make his vill; all the + time he wos a takin’ it down, Jinkinson was secretly a clippin’ avay + at his hair vith a large pair of scissors. ‘Wot’s that ’ere snippin’ + noise?’ says the lawyer every now and then, ‘it’s like a man havin’ + his hair cut.’ ‘It _is_ wery like a man havin’ his hair cut,’ says + poor Jinkinson, hidin’ the scissors and lookin’ quite innocent. By + the time the lawyer found it out, he was wery nearly bald. Jinkinson + was kept alive in this vay for a long time, but at last vun day he + has in all the children, vun arter another, shaves each on ’em wery + clean, and gives him vun kiss on the crown of his head; then he has + in the two assistants, and arter cuttin’ and curlin’ of ’em in the + first style of elegance, says he should like to hear the woice o’ the + greasiest bear, vich rekvest is immedetly complied with; then he says + that he feels wery happy in his mind, and vishes to be left alone; + and then he dies, prevously cuttin’ his own hair, and makin’ one flat + curl in the wery middle of his forehead.” {18a} + +There is a great deal more in the same vein, not unworthy of the +“Pickwick Papers.” We must leave the curious reader to find it out, +however, for himself. + +During the progress of this publication, it seems that certain officious +persons, mistaking it for a kind of _omnium gatherum_, by “several +hands,” tendered contributions to its pages, and the author was compelled +to issue the following advertisement: + + MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK. + + MR. DICKENS begs to inform all those Ladies and Gentlemen who have + tendered him contributions for this work, and all those who may now + or at any future time have it in contemplation to do so, that he + cannot avail himself of their obliging offers, as it is written + solely by himself, and cannot possibly include any productions from + other hands. + + This announcement will serve for a final answer to all + correspondents, and will render any private communications + unnecessary. + +After “winding up his Clock,” as he termed it, Dickens resolved to make a +tour in the United States. Before he went away, however, some of the +most distinguished citizens of Edinburgh gave him a farewell banquet. +{18b} He was then only twenty-nine years of age, and this was the first +great public recognition of his genius, and the first occasion that was +afforded him of displaying his powers as a public speaker. Professor +Wilson (Christopher North) presided, and spoke of the young author in the +following terms:— + + “Our friend has dealt with the common feelings and passions of + ordinary men in the common and ordinary paths of life. He has not + sought—at least he has not yet sought—to deal with those thoughts and + passions that are made conspicuous from afar by the elevated stations + of those who experience them. He has mingled in the common walks of + life; he has made himself familiar with the lower orders of society. + He has not been deterred by the aspect of vice and wickedness, and + misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of good in things evil, but + has endeavoured by the might of genius to transmute what was base + into what is precious as the beaten gold. . . . But I shall be + betrayed, if I go on much longer,—which it would be improper for me + to do—into something like a critical delineation of the genius of our + illustrious guest. I shall not attempt that; but I cannot but + express in a few ineffectual words, the delight which every human + bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades all his creations. + How kind and good a man he is, I need not say; nor what strength of + genius he has acquired by that profound sympathy with his + fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happiness, or overwhelmed + with unfortunate circumstances, but who do not yet sink under their + miseries, but trust to their own strength of endurance, to that + principle of truth and honour and integrity which is no stranger to + the uncultivated bosom, which is found in the lowest abodes in as + great strength as in the halls of nobles and the palaces of kings. + + “Mr. Dickens is also a satirist. He satirises human life, but he + does not satirise it to degrade it. He does not wish to pull down + what is high into the neighbourhood of what is low. He does not seek + to represent all virtue as a hollow thing, in which no confidence can + be placed. He satirises only the selfish, and the hard-hearted, and + the cruel; he exposes in a hideous light that principle which, when + acted upon, gives a power to men in the lowest grades to carry on a + more terrific tyranny than if placed upon thrones. I shall not + say—for I do not feel—that our distinguished guest has done full and + entire justice to one subject—that he has entirely succeeded where I + have no doubt he would be most anxious to succeed—in a full and + complete delineation of the female character. But this he has done: + he has not endeavoured to represent women as charming merely by the + aid of accomplishments, however elegant and graceful. He has not + depicted those accomplishments as the essentials of their character, + but has spoken of them rather as always inspired by a love of + domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by charity, and by + hope, which makes them discharge, under the most difficult + circumstances, their duties; and which brings over their path in this + world some glimpses of the light of heaven. Mr. Dickens may be + assured that there is felt for him all over Scotland a sentiment of + kindness, affection, admiration and love; and I know for certain that + the knowledge of these sentiments must make him happy.” + + * * * * * + +Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the +“Britannia” steam-packet, Captain Hewett, on the 3rd of January, 1842. +At Boston, Hartford, and New York, he was received with ovations +(Washington Irving on one occasion presiding at a banquet held in his +honour), until he was obliged to decline any further appearance in +public. During this first visit to America, he made three long and +eloquent speeches, which are all given in this volume _in extenso_. In +each of these he referred in an earnest way to the great question of +International Copyright, urging upon his Transatlantic friends the +necessity of doing right and justice in this matter. He returned to +England in the month of June, and a few weeks afterwards addressed the +following circular letter to all the principal English authors:— + + “1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, York Gate, Regent’s Park, + “7_th_ _July_, 1842. + + “You may perhaps be aware that, during my stay in America, I lost no + opportunity of endeavouring to awaken the public mind to a sense of + the unjust and iniquitous state of the law in that country, in + reference to the wholesale piracy of British works. Having been + successful in making the subject one of general discussion in the + United States, I carried to Washington, for presentation to Congress + by Mr. Clay, a petition from the whole body of American authors, + earnestly praying for the enactment of an International Copyright + Law. It was signed by Mr. Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. + Cooper, and every man who has distinguished himself in the literature + of America; and has since been referred to a Select Committee of the + House of Representatives. To counteract any effect which might be + produced by that petition, a meeting was held in Boston—which, you + will remember, is the seat and stronghold of Learning and Letters in + the United States—at which a memorial against any change in the + existing state of things in this respect was agreed to, with but one + dissentient voice. This document, which, incredible as it may appear + to you, was actually forwarded to Congress and received, deliberately + stated that if English authors were invested with any control over + the re-publication of their own books, it would be no longer possible + for American editors to alter and adapt them (as they do now) to the + American taste! This memorial was, without loss of time, replied to + by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with the natural indignation of a + gentleman, and a man of letters, upon its extraordinary dishonesty. + I am satisfied that this brief mention of its tone and spirit is + sufficient to impress you with the conviction that it becomes all + those who are in any way connected with the literature of England, to + take that high stand, to which the nature of their pursuits, and the + extent of their sphere of usefulness, justly entitle them, to + discourage the upholders of such doctrines by every means in their + power, and to hold themselves aloof from the remotest participation + in a system, from which the moral sense and honourable feeling of all + just men must instinctively recoil. + + “For myself, I have resolved that I will never from this time enter + into any negotiation with any person for the transmission across the + Atlantic of early proofs of anything I may write, and that I will + forego all profit derivable from such a source. I do not venture to + urge this line of proceeding upon you, but I would beg to suggest, + and to lay great stress upon the necessity of observing one other + course of action, to which I cannot too emphatically call your + attention. The persons who exert themselves to mislead the American + public on this question, to put down its discussion, and to suppress + and distort the truth in reference to it in every possible way, are + (as you may easily suppose) those who have a strong interest in the + existing system of piracy and plunder: inasmuch as, so long as it + continues, they can gain a very comfortable living out of the brains + of other men, while they would find it very difficult to earn bread + by the exercise of their own. These are the editors and proprietors + of newspapers almost exclusively devoted to the re-publication of + popular English works. They are, for the most part, men of very low + attainments, and of more than indifferent reputation; and I have + frequently seen them, in the same sheet in which they boast of the + rapid sale of many thousand copies of an English reprint, coarsely + and insolently attacking the author of that very book, and heaping + scurrility and slander upon his head. I would therefore entreat you, + in the name of the honourable pursuit with which you are so + intimately connected, never to hold correspondence with any of these + men, and never to negotiate with them for the sale of early proofs of + any work over which you have control, but to treat on all occasions + with some respectable American publishing house, and with such an + establishment only. Our common interest in this subject, and my + advocacy of it, single-handed, on every occasion that has presented + itself during my absence from Europe, form my excuse for addressing + you. + + “I am, &c., + “CHARLES DICKENS.” + +By his “American Notes,” and by some of the scenes in “Martin +Chuzzlewit,” Dickens gave for a time great offence to the Americans, +though he only satirised some of their foibles (with just a spice of +piquante exaggeration), as he had ours at home. Let the reader hear what +two candid Americans have recently written on this subject:— + + “The ‘American Notes’ are weak, and unworthy of their author; but the + American sketches in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ are among the cleverest and + truest things he has ever written. The satire was richly deserved, + well applied, and has done a great deal of good. To claim that it + was mere burlesque and exaggeration, is sheer nonsense, and it is + highly disingenuous to deny the existence of the absurdities upon + which it was founded. Moreover, the popular implication that there + is really nothing now in the country justly to provoke a smile—to + urge with so much complacency that we have changed all that—argues + the continued existence of not a little of the same thin-skinned + tetchiness, the same inability ‘to see ourselves as others see us,’ + which made us so legitimate a target before.” + + “As for certain American portraits painted in Martin Chuzzlewit,” + says an American lady, {24} “I should as soon think of objecting to + them as I should think of objecting to any other discovery in natural + history. To deny the existence of Elijah Pogram, Jefferson Brick, + Colonel Diver, Mrs. Hominy, and Miss Codger, is to deny facts + somewhat exaggerated, that are patent to any keen observer who has + ever travelled through the United States. The character of Elijah + Pogram is so well known as to constantly figure in the world of + illustration; and we can well afford to laugh at foibles of native + growth when Mr. Dickens devotes the greater part of this same novel + to the exposition of English vice and selfishness.” + +The following letter, referring to Martin Chuzzlewit, which was then in +course of publication, was addressed by Mr. Dickens to a friend in +January, 1844:— + + “Devonshire Terrace, + “_January_ 2_d_, 1844. + + MY DEAR SIR, + + “THAT is a very horrible case you tell me of. I would to God I could + get at the parental heart of —, in which event I would so scarify it, + that he should writhe again. But if I were to put such a father as + he into a book, all the fathers going (and especially the bad ones) + would hold up their hands and protest against the unnatural + caricature. I find that a great many people (particularly those who + might have sat for the character) consider even Mr. Pecksniff a + grotesque impossibility, and Mrs. Nickleby herself, sitting bodily + before me in a solid chair, once asked me whether I really believed + there ever was such a woman. + + “So — reviewing his own case, would not believe in Jonas Chuzzlewit. + ‘I like Oliver Twist,’ says —, ‘for I am fond of children. But the + book is unnatural, for who would think of being cruel to poor little + Oliver Twist!’ + + “Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my mind, and if I can hit him + between the eyes so that he shall stagger more than you or I have + done this Christmas under the combined effects of punch and turkey, I + will. + + “Thank you cordially for your note. Excuse this scrap of paper. I + thought it was a whole sheet until I turned it over. + + “My dear Sir, + “Faithfully yours, + “CHARLES DICKENS.” + +To a collection of Sketches and Tales by a Working Man, published in +1844, {26} Charles Dickens was induced to contribute a preface, from +which we select the following passages:— + + “I do not recommend it as a book of surpassing originality or + transcendent merit . . . I do not claim to have discovered, in humble + life, an extraordinary and brilliant genius. I cannot charge mankind + in general with having entered into a conspiracy to neglect the + author of this volume, or to leave him pining in obscurity. I have + not the smallest intention of comparing him with Burns, the + exciseman; or with Bloomfield, the shoemaker; or with Ebenezer + Elliott, the worker in iron; or with James Hogg, the shepherd. I see + no reason to be hot, or bitter, or lowering, or sarcastic, or + indignant, or fierce, or sour, or sharp, in his behalf. I have + nothing to rail at; nothing to exalt; nothing to flourish in the face + of a stony-hearted world; and have but a very short and simple story + to tell. + + “John Overs is, as is set forth in the title-page, a working man. A + man who earns his weekly wages (or who did when he was strong enough) + by plying of the hammer, plane, and chisel. He became known to me + nearly six years ago, when he sent me some songs, appropriate to the + different months of the year, with a letter, stating under what + circumstances they had been composed, and in what manner he was + occupied from morning until night. I was just then relinquishing the + conduct of a monthly periodical, {27} or I would gladly have + published them. As it was, I returned them to him, with a private + expression of the interest I felt in such productions. They were + afterwards accepted, with much readiness and consideration, by Mr. + Tait, of Edinburgh, and were printed in his Magazine. + + “Finding, after some further correspondence with my new friend, that + his authorship had not ceased with his verses, but that he still + occupied his leisure moments in writing, I took occasion to + remonstrate with him seriously against his pursuing that course. I + told him, his persistence in his new calling made me uneasy; and I + advised him to abandon it as strongly as I could. + + “In answer to this dissuasion of mine, he wrote me as manly and + straightforward, but withal, as modest a letter, as ever I read in my + life. He explained to me how limited his ambition was: soaring no + higher than the establishment of his wife in some light business, and + the better education of his children. He set before me the + difference between his evening and holiday studies, such as they + were; and the having no better resource than an ale-house or a + skittle-ground. He told me how every small addition to his stock of + knowledge made his Sunday walks the pleasanter, the hedge-flowers + sweeter, everything more full of interest and meaning to him. + + * * * * * + + “He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the man who came into my + little study for the first time, half-a-dozen years ago, after the + correspondence I have mentioned. He has been very ill for a long + period; his disease is a severe and wasting affection of the lungs, + which has incapacitated him these many months for every kind of + occupation. ‘If I could only do a hard day’s work,’ he said to me + the other day, ‘how happy I should be.’ + + “Having these papers by him, amongst others, he bethought himself + that, if he could get a bookseller to purchase them for publication + in a volume, they would enable him to make some temporary provision + for his sick wife, and very young family. We talked the matter over + together, and that it might be easier of accomplishment I promised + him that I would write an introduction to his book. + + “I would to Heaven that I could do him better service! I would to + Heaven it were an introduction to a long, and vigorous, and useful + life! But Hope will not trim his lamp the less brightly for him and + his, because of this impulse to their struggling fortunes, and trust + me, reader, they deserve her light, and need it sorely. + + “He has inscribed this book to one {28} whose skill will help him, + under Providence, in all that human skill can do. {29} To one who + never could have recognised in any potentate on earth a higher claim + to constant kindness and attention than he has recognized in him. * * + * *” + +The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with which during the last +fifteen years the public have become so familiar, was commenced by Mr. +Dickens in December, 1843, with _A Christmas Carol in Prose_, illustrated +by John Leech. What Jeffrey, what Sydney Smith, what Jerrold, what +Thackeray thought and wrote about this little story is well known. +“Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens,” wrote Jeffrey, “and may +it always be as full and as light as it is kind, and a fountain of +goodness to all within reach of its beatings. We are all charmed with +your Carol; chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all +through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been +awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream of a +beneficent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim in +life and in death almost as sweet and touching as Nelly. You may be sure +you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but +prompted more positive acts of benevolence by this little publication +than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, +1842.” + + “It is the work,” writes Thackeray, {30} “of the master of all the + English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his + place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. + Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those half-dozen years, the + store of happy hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and + pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless + laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which he has + taught us to feel! Every month of those years has brought us some + kind token from this delightful genius. His books may have lost in + art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? Since the days when the + _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred mind and temper, what + books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the + English public as these? + + “Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It + seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads + it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were + women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said by way of + criticism, ‘God bless him!’ * * * As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain + passage in the book regarding that young gentleman about which a man + should hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than + he would of any other affections of his private heart. There is not + a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union + between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as + the woman just now, ‘God bless him!’ What a feeling is this for a + writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap.” + +During six years did Mr. Dickens continue to issue at Christmas these +little volumes: “A Christmas Carol” (December, 1843); “The Chimes” +(December, 1844); “The Cricket on the Hearth” (December, 1845); “The +Battle of Life” (December, 1846); “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s +Bargain” (December, 1848). {31} + +Christmas stories are now grown so much the fashion that, whenever the +season of holly and mistletoe comes round they greet us at every turn, +forcing themselves upon our notice through every species of whimsical and +enticing embellishment. Why is it that, amidst such a satiety of +novelties we turn again and again, with an interest as keen as ever, to a +perusal of the pages where little Dot Peerybingle chirps as brightly as +the cricket on her own hearth, where Trotty Veck listens to the voices of +the chimes, striving to comprehend what it is they say to him, and where +old Scrooge’s heart is softened by his ghostly visitants? It is because +Charles Dickens has made such a study of that human nature we all possess +in common that he is able to strike with a practised hand upon the chords +of our hearts, and draw forth harmony that vibrates from soul to soul. + +It is not, however, our intention here, to follow Mr. Dickens through the +whole of his long and honourable literary career, far less to undertake +the superfluous task of extolling the numerous and brilliant list of +writings that have followed each other in rapid and welcome succession +from his indefatigable pen. All that remains for us to do now, is to +notice briefly two very grave charges that have been made against the +general tendency of his writings, and to bring forward some evidence in +refutation of them. + +These two charges are, 1, a wilful perversion of facts in describing the +political and social condition of our time; 2, an irreverence for and +ridicule of sacred things and persons, which (say the objectors) infuses +a subtle poison through the whole of his works, and unsettles the belief +of the young. We shall take these charges one at a time. + +In some of his later novels, such as “Bleak House,” and “Little Dorrit,” +in which he has endeavoured to grapple with the great social and +political problems of the age, certain critics have accused him of +exaggeration, and even of a wilful perversion of facts. Against their +opinion we are pleased to be able to set that of so good an authority as +the author of “Modern Painters:”— + + “The essential value and truth of Dickens’s writings,” says Mr. + Ruskin, “have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, + merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. + Unwisely, because Dickens’s caricature, though often gross, is never + mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he + tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to + limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public + amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high national + importance, such as that which he handled in ‘Hard Times,’ that he + would use severer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that + work (to my mind, in several respects the greatest he has written,) + is with many persons seriously diminished, because Mr. Bounderby is a + dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly + master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a + characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not lose the + use of Dickens’s wit and insight because he chooses to speak in a + circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and + purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially + ‘Hard Times,’ should be studied with close and earnest care by + persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is + partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine + all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, + it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the + finally right one, grossly and sharply told.” {33} + +Secondly, Mr. Dickens is accused of an irreverence for, and unseemly +ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive reader of Dickens will have +observed that he is not much in the habit of quoting from, or alluding to +the writings of others; but that when he does quote or allude, it is in +the great majority of cases from or to the Holy Scriptures. {34} +Occasionally we come upon a reference to Shakespeare; now and then we +meet with one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but these occur so seldom, +that it may be said, once for all, that the source from which Mr. Dickens +is usually in the habit of making quotations, is the Bible only. It is +very interesting to find that so many of Mr. Dickens’s characters are +represented as being in the habit either of regularly reading and +studying the Bible, or of having it read to them by some one else. + +“I ain’t much of a hand at reading writing-hand,” said Betty Higden, +“though I can read my Bible and most print.” Little Nell was in the +constant habit of taking the Bible with her to read while in her quiet +and lonely retreat in the old church, after all her long and weary +wanderings were past. In the happy time which Oliver Twist spent with +Mrs. Maylie and Rose, he used to read, in the evenings, a chapter or two +from the Bible, which he had been studying all the week, and in the +performance of which duty he felt more proud and pleased than if he had +been the clergyman himself. There was Sarah, in the “Sketches by Boz,” +who regularly read the Bible to her old mistress; and in the touching +sketch of “Our Next-door Neighbour” in the same book, we find the mother +of the sick boy engaged in reading the Bible to him when the visitor +called and interrupted her. This incident reminds us of the poor +Chancery prisoner in the Fleet, who, when on his death-bed calmly waiting +the release which would set him free for ever, had the Bible read to him +by an old man in a cobbler’s apron. One of David Copperfield’s earliest +recollections was of a certain Sunday evening, when his mother read aloud +to him and Peggotty the story of Our Saviour raising Lazarus from the +dead. So deep an impression did the story make upon the boy, taken in +connexion with all that had been lately told him about his father’s +funeral, that he requested to be carried up to his bed-room, from the +windows of which he could see the quiet churchyard with the dead all +lying in their graves at rest below the solemn moon. Pip, too, in “Great +Expectations,” was not only in the habit of reading the Bible to the +convict under sentence of death, but of praying with him as well; and +Esther Summerson tells us how she used to come downstairs every evening +at nine o’clock to read the Bible to her god-mother. + +Not a few of the dwellings into which Mr. Dickens conducts us in the +course of some of his best-known stories, have their walls decorated with +prints illustrative of familiar scenes from sacred history. Thus when +Martin Chuzzlewit went away from Pecksniff’s, and was ten good miles on +his way to London, he stopped to breakfast in the parlour of a little +roadside inn, on the walls of which were two or three highly-coloured +pictures, representing the Wise Men at the Manger, and the Prodigal Son +returning to his Father. On the walls of Peggotty’s charming +boat-cottage there were prints, showing the Sacrifice of Isaac, and the +Casting of Daniel into the Den of Lions. When Arthur Clennam came home +after his long absence in the East, he found the Plagues of Egypt still +hanging, framed and glazed, on the same old place in his mother’s +parlour. And who has forgotten the fireplace in old Scrooge’s house, +which “was paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to +illustrate the Scriptures?” + +Here are a few comparisons. Mr. Larry, in bestowing a bachelor’s +blessing on Miss Cross, before “somebody” came to claim her for his own, +“held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on +the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little +brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things +be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam.” As old as Adam here means so +long ago as Adam’s time; while Methuselah suggests great age. Thus Miss +Jellyby relieved her mind to Miss Summerson on the subject of Mr. Quale, +in the following energetic language:—“If he were to come with his great +shining, lumpy forehead, night after night, till he was as old as +Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him.” And Mr. Filer, in +his eminently practical remarks on the lamentable ignorance of political +economy on the part of working people in connexion with marriage, +observed to Alderman Cute that a man may live to be as old as Methuselah, +and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people; but there +could be no more hope of persuading them that they had no right or +business to be married, than he could hope to persuade them that they had +no earthly right or business to be born. Miss Betsy Trotwood declared to +Mr. Dick that the natural consequence of David Copperfield’s mother +having married a murderer—or a man with a name very like it—was to set +the boy a-prowling and wandering about the country, “like Cain before he +was grown up.” Joe Gargery’s journeyman, on going away from his work at +night, used to slouch out of the shop like Cain, or the Wandering Jew, as +if he had no idea where he was going, and had no intention of ever coming +back. Describing the state of “the thriving City of Eden,” when Martin +and Mark arrived there, the author of “Martin Chuzzlewit” says—“The +waters of the Deluge might have left it but a week before, so choked with +slime and matted growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name.” The +Deluge suggests Noah’s ark. The following reference to it is from +“Little Dorrit,” descriptive of the gradual approach of darkness up among +the highest ridges of the Alps:—“The ascending night came up the +mountains like a rising water. When at last it rose to the walls of the +convent of the great St. Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten +structure were another ark, and floated on the shadowy waves.” Here is +something from the Tower of Babel:—“Looming heavy in the black wet night, +the tall chimneys of the Coketown factories rose high into the air, and +looked as if they were so many competing towers of Babel.” When Mortimer +Lightwood inquired of Charley Hexam, with reference to the body of the +man found in the river, whether or not any means had been employed to +restore life, he received this reply:—“You wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew +his state. Pharoah’s multitude that were drowned in the Red Sea ain’t +more beyond restoring to life.” The boy added, further, “that if Lazarus +were only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all the miracles.” +When the Scotch surgeon was called in professionally to see Mr. Krook’s +unfortunate lodger, the Scotch tongue pronounced him to be “just as dead +as Chairy.” Job’s poverty is not likely to be forgotten among the +comparisons. No, Mr. Mell’s mother was as poor as Job. Nor Samson’s +strength: Dot’s mother had so many infallible recipes for the +preservation of the baby’s health, that had they all been administered, +the said baby must have been done for, though strong as an infant Samson. +Nor Goliath’s importance: John Chivery’s chivalrous feeling towards all +that belonged to Little Dorrit, made him so very respectable, in spite of +his small stature, his weak legs, and his genuine poetic temperament, +that a Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration +at Arthur Clennam’s hands. Nor Solomon’s wisdom: Trotty Veck was so +delighted when the child kissed him that he couldn’t help saying, “She’s +as sensible as Solomon.” Miss Wade having said farewell to her +fellow-travellers in the public room of the hotel at Marseilles, sought +her own apartment. As she passed along the gallery, she heard an angry +sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and, looking into the +room, she saw therein Pet’s attendant, the maid with the curious name of +Tattycoram. Miss Wade asked what was the matter, and received in reply a +few short and angry words in a deeply-injured, ill-used tone. Then again +commenced the sobs and tears and pinching, tearing fingers, making +altogether such a scene as if she were being “rent by the demons of old.” +Let us close these comparisons by quoting another from the same book, +“Little Dorrit,” descriptive of the evening stillness after a day of +terrific glare and heat at Marseilles:—“The sun went down in a red, +green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the +fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the +goodness of a better order of beings; the long, dusty roads and the +interminable plains were in repose, and _so deep a hush was on the sea_, +_that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead_.” + +Looking over the familiar pages of “Nicholas Nickleby,” our eye lights +upon a passage, almost at opening, which refers to God’s goodness and +mercy. As Nickleby’s father lay on his death-bed, he embraced his wife +and children, and then “solemnly commended them to One who never deserted +the widow or her fatherless children.” Towards the close of Esther +Summerson’s narrative in “Bleak House” we read these touching, tender +words regarding Ada’s baby:—“The little child who was to have done so +much was born before the turf was planted on its father’s grave. It was +a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father’s name. +The help that my dear counted on did come to her; though it came in the +Eternal Wisdom for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his +mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty +to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand, and how its +touch could heal my darling’s heart and raise up hopes within her, I felt +a new sense of the goodness and tenderness of God.” After these +illustrations of the great lessons of the goodness of God, and that there +is mercy in even our hardest trials, we come next upon one which teaches +the duty of patience and resignation to God’s will. Mrs. Maylie observed +to Oliver Twist, with reference to the dangerous illness of Rose, that +she had seen and experienced enough to “know that it is not always the +youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should +give us comfort in our sorrow, for Heaven is just, and such things teach +us impressively that there is a brighter world than this, and that the +passage to it is speedy. God’s will be done!” + +Our Saviour’s life and teaching afford so many interesting illustrations +to Charles Dickens that our great difficulty, in the limited space to +which we are now confined, is to make a good selection. Here is a sketch +entitled “A Christmas Tree,” from one of his reprinted pieces, which +contains this simple and beautiful summary of our Lord’s life on +earth:—“The waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What +images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on +the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from +all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel speaking to a +group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, +following a star; a Baby in a manger; a Child in a spacious temple +talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, +raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back +the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking +through the opened roof of a chamber where He sits, and letting down a +sick person on a bed with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the +water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; +again, with a child upon His knee, and other children round; again, +restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, +health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; +again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness +coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, +‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” + +These passages, which are only a few out of a very much longer list that +might be made, will be sufficient, we trust, to show how much our +greatest living novelist is in the habit of going to the sacred narrative +for illustrations to many of his most touching incidents, and how +reverent and respectful always is the spirit in which every such +illustration is employed. To think of Charles Dickens’s writings as +containing no religious teaching, is to do them a great injustice. + + * * * * * + +The first of Mr. Dickens’s famous public Readings was given at +Birmingham, during the Christmas week of 1853. At a meeting held on +Monday, January 10, 1853, in the theatre of the Philosophical +Institution, “for the purpose of considering the desirableness of +establishing in Birmingham a Scientific and Literary Society upon a +comprehensive plan, having for its object the diffusion,” &c., Mr. Arthur +Ryland read a letter from Mr. Charles Dickens, received by him the day +after the Literary and Artistic Banquet, containing an offer to visit +Birmingham next Christmas, and read his Christmas Carol, in the Town +Hall, for the benefit of the proposed Institution, with the proviso, +however, that as many as possible of the working class should be admitted +free. “It would,” said Mr. Dickens, “take about two hours, with a pause +of ten minutes half-way through. There would be some novelty in the +thing, as I have never done it in public, though I have in private, and +(if I may say so) with a great effect on the hearers. I was so +inexpressibly gratified last night by the warmth and enthusiasm of my +Birmingham friends, that I feel half ashamed this morning of so poor an +offer. But as I had decided on making it to you before I came down +yesterday, I propose it nevertheless.” + +The readings—three in number—came off with great _éclat_ during the last +week of the year, and brought in a net sum of £400 to the Institute. Mr. +Dickens continued from this time to give similar readings, for charitable +purposes, both in the provinces and in London; but it was not till five +years later (1858) that he began to read on his own account. + +As we are writing, that long series of readings—continued through sixteen +years, in both hemispheres—is drawing to a close, and the voice and +figure of Charles Dickens, that have grown so familiar to us all, will +dwell henceforth in the memory alone, but in one of its most honoured +niches. + +We ought not to omit to mention what any reader may well surmise, that +Charles Dickens is inimitable in enlivening correspondence or table-talk +with humorous anecdote, appropriate to the occasion. We subjoin a few +specimens. The first is from one of his letters to Douglas Jerrold, and +is dated Paris, 14th February, 1847:—“I am somehow reminded of a good +story I heard the other night from a man who was a witness of it, and an +actor in it. At a certain German town last autumn there was a tremendous +_furore_ about Jenny Lind, who, after driving the whole place mad, left +it, on her travels, early one morning. The moment her carriage was +outside the gates, a party of rampant students, who had escorted it, +rushed back to the inn, demanded to be shown to her bedroom, swept like a +whirlwind upstairs into the room indicated to them, tore up the sheets, +and wore them in strips as decorations. An hour or two afterwards a bald +old gentleman, of amiable appearance, an Englishman, who was staying in +the hotel, came to breakfast at the _table d’hôte_, and was observed to +be much disturbed in his mind, and to show great terror whenever a +student came near him. At last he said, in a low voice, to some people +who were near him at the table, ‘You are English gentlemen, I observe. +Most extraordinary people, these Germans! Students, as a body, raving +mad, gentlemen!’ ‘Oh, no!’ said somebody else; ‘excitable, but very good +fellows, and very sensible.’ ‘By God, sir!’ returned the old gentleman, +still more disturbed, ‘then there’s something political in it, and I am a +marked man. I went out for a little walk this morning after shaving, and +while I was gone’—he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told +it—‘they burst into my bedroom, tore up my sheets, and are now patrolling +the town in all directions with bits of ’em in their button-holes!’ I +needn’t wind up by adding that they had gone to the wrong chamber.” + +Dickens now and then administers a little gentle rebuke to affectation, +in a pleasant but unmistakable manner. Here is an instance of how he +silenced a bilious young writer, who was inveighing against the world in +a very “forcible feeble manner.” During a pause in this philippic +against the human race, Dickens said across the table, in the most +self-congratulatory of tones:—“I say—what a lucky thing it is you and I +don’t belong to it? It reminds me,” continued the author of Pickwick, +“of the two men, who on a _raised_ scaffold were awaiting the final +delicate attention of the hangman; the notice of one was aroused by +observing that a bull had got into the crowd of spectators, and was +busily employed in tossing one here, and another there; whereupon one of +the criminals said to the other—‘I say, Bill, how _lucky it is_ for us +that we _are up here_.’” + + * * * * * + +Here is a humorous and graphic account which he sent to the leading +newspaper of his sensations during the shock of earthquake that was felt +all over England in October, 1863. It is doubly interesting, as giving a +description of his country-house at Gad’s-hill, near Rochester:— + + “I was awakened by a violent swaying of my bedstead from side to + side, accompanied by a singular heaving motion. It was exactly as if + some great beast had been crouching asleep under the bedstead, and + were now shaking itself and trying to rise. The time by my watch was + twenty minutes past three, and I suppose the shock to have lasted + nearly a minute. The bedstead, a large iron one, standing nearly + north and south, appeared to me to be the only piece of furniture in + the room that was heavily shaken. Neither the doors nor the windows + rattled, though they rattle enough in windy weather, this house + standing alone, on high ground, in the neighbourhood of two great + rivers. There was no noise. The air was very still, and much warmer + than it had been in the earlier part of the night. Although the + previous afternoon had been wet, the glass had not fallen. I had + mentioned my surprise at its standing near the letter ‘i’ in ‘Fair,’ + and having a tendency to rise.” + + * * * * * + +But the thing which, above all others, has characterised Dickens +throughout his career, that has made his world-wide fame, and rendered +his name a household word, is his broad, genial sympathy with life in all +its phases, and with those most who are manfully toiling towards a better +day. To this “enthusiasm of humanity” John Forster has alluded in the +Dedicatory Sonnet to Charles Dickens, prefixed to his “Life of +Goldsmith,” (March, 1848), when he says:— + + “Come with me and behold, + O friend with heart as gentle for distress, + As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind + The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind, + That there is fiercer crowded misery + In garret-toil and London loneliness + Than in cruel islands ’mid the far-off sea.” + +The great heart of Dickens has beat in unison with his age and with the +people, and his name will be dear to all English-speaking races long +after this little island of ours, the old home, shall have become a +summer resort—a curiosity to visit—for the children of the great +Anglo-Saxon Republics that are now growing up in the New and the Southern +Worlds. + +_December_, 1869. + + + + +I. +EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841. + + +[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided over by +the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his health in a +long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as follows:—] + +IF I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to +thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened to the glowing +language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could have heard as you +heard the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” which he has +uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of +his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell +from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with +which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond +to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to +respond as I would do to your cordial greeting—possessing, heaven knows, +the will, and desiring only to find the way. + +The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very +pleasing—a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as +if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly +valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which +you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each +other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if +they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in +inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. + +It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. +But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a +word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and +humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless +cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that +it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as +the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness +which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may +be found in the bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with +poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, +expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet— + + “The rank is but the guinea stamp, + The man’s the gowd for a’ that.” + +And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I +was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than +in your kindness on this to me memorable night? + +I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in +reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were +interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound +paradoxical, that you were disappointed—I mean the death of the little +heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story +to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to +forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, +in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if +in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of +fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I +have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better +thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written +one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time +of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved—something which I +shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my +purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I +daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God +bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when +he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their +virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in +endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, +combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not +altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to +my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first +condemned me are now foremost in their approbation. + +If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do +not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a +confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once +more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction +you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I +never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and +that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well +know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland +without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have +life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of +her streets. And if in the future works which may lie before me you +should discern—God grant you may!—a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I +pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish +passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a +thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as +my glass, and far easier emptied, I do assure you. + + * * * * * + +Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, Mr. +Dickens said:— + +I HAVE the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which +will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no ordinary +claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as +congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. +It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to +propose the literature of Scotland—a literature which he has done much to +render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many +years—as I hope and believe he will be for many more—a most brilliant and +distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of +Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable +from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with +his lion heart and sceptred crutch—Christopher North. I am glad to +remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old +gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with +the most brilliant eye—but that is no fiction—and the greyest hair in all +the world—who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared +for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he +could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a +clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the +glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at +the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so +figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, +striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a +personal offence—I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to see +twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all +light and no shadows, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I +have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh +sources of interest. + + * * * * * + +In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. Dickens said:— + +LESS fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is +confided to me to mention a name which cannot be pronounced without +sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which England +delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as +it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art was +nature—I mean David Wilkie. {53} He was one who made the cottage hearth +a graceful thing—of whom it might truly be said that he found “books in +the running brooks,” and who has left in all he did some breathing of the +air which stirs the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his +genius as an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who has +gone from amongst us. There is his deserted studio—the empty easel lying +idly by—the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and +there is that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which +death cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the bright sky; +he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which roll +over him. Let us hope that she who more than all others mourns his loss, +may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness of his time, before age +or sickness had dimmed his powers—and that she may yet associate with +feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory of Wilkie. + + + + +II. +JANUARY, 1842. + + +[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the _Britannia_, {55} with a service of +plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as follows:] + +CAPTAIN HEWETT,—I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the +instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my +fellow-passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of +entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious +artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises, +even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two goblets, which there +should be here, there is, at present, only one. The deficiency, however, +will soon be supplied; and, when it is, our little testimonial will be, +so far, complete. + +You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and +the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a sailor’s first +boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, +by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the +recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigils upon +the ocean for a long time to come. + +In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope you +will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory by the help +of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasure of +those homes and fire sides from which they once wandered, and which, but +for you, they might never have regained, so they trust that you will +sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, +when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is +commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have; and who +earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in +all the undertakings of your life. + + + + +III. +FEBRUARY 1842. + + +[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The company +consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George Bancroft, +Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast of “Health, +happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens,” having been proposed +by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with great applause, Mr. +Dickens responded with the following address:] + +GENTLEMEN,—If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone else in +the whole wide world—if I were to-night to exult in the triumph of my +dearest friend—if I stood here upon my defence, to repel any unjust +attack—to appeal as a stranger to your generosity and kindness as the +freest people on the earth—I could, putting some restraint upon myself, +stand among you as self-possessed and unmoved as I should be alone in my +own room in England. But when I have the echoes of your cordial greeting +ringing in my ears; when I see your kind faces beaming a welcome so warm +and earnest as never man had—I feel, it is my nature, so vanquished and +subdued, that I have hardly fortitude enough to thank you. If your +President, instead of pouring forth that delightful mixture of humour and +pathos which you have just heard, had been but a caustic, ill-natured +man—if he had only been a dull one—if I could only have doubted or +distrusted him or you, I should have had my wits at my fingers’ ends, +and, using them, could have held you at arm’s-length. But you have given +me no such opportunity; you take advantage of me in the tenderest point; +you give me no chance of playing at company, or holding you at a +distance, but flock about me like a host of brothers, and make this place +like home. Indeed, gentlemen, indeed, if it be natural and allowable for +each of us, on his own hearth, to express his thoughts in the most homely +fashion, and to appear in his plainest garb, I have a fair claim upon you +to let me do so to-night, for you have made my home an Aladdin’s Palace. +You fold so tenderly within your breasts that common household lamp in +which my feeble fire is all enshrined, and at which my flickering torch +is lighted up, that straight my household gods take wing, and are +transported there. And whereas it is written of that fairy structure +that it never moved without two shocks—one when it rose, and one when it +settled down—I can say of mine that, however sharp a tug it took to pluck +it from its native ground, it struck at once an easy, and a deep and +lasting root into this soil; and loved it as its own. I can say more of +it, and say with truth, that long before it moved, or had a chance of +moving, its master—perhaps from some secret sympathy between its timbers, +and a certain stately tree that has its being hereabout, and spreads its +broad branches far and wide—dreamed by day and night, for years, of +setting foot upon this shore, and breathing this pure air. And, trust +me, gentlemen, that, if I had wandered here, unknowing and unknown, I +would—if I know my own heart—have come with all my sympathies clustering +as richly about this land and people—with all my sense of justice as +keenly alive to their high claims on every man who loves God’s image—with +all my energies as fully bent on judging for myself, and speaking out, +and telling in my sphere the truth, as I do now, when you rain down your +welcomes on my head. + +Our President has alluded to those writings which have been my occupation +for some years past; and you have received his allusions in a manner +which assures me—if I needed any such assurance—that we are old friends +in the spirit, and have been in close communion for a long time. + +It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I daresay that few +persons have been more interested in mine than I, and if it be a general +principle in nature that a lover’s love is blind, and that a mother’s +love is blind, I believe it may be said of an author’s attachment to the +creatures of his own imagination, that it is a perfect model of constancy +and devotion, and is the blindest of all. But the objects and purposes I +have had in view are very plain and simple, and may be easily told. I +have always had, and always shall have, an earnest and true desire to +contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful +cheerfulness and enjoyment. I have always had, and always shall have, an +invincible repugnance to that mole-eyed philosophy which loves the +darkness, and winks and scowls in the light. I believe that Virtue shows +quite as well in rags and patches, as she does in purple and fine linen. +I believe that she and every beautiful object in external nature, claims +some sympathy in the breast of the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf +of daily bread. I believe that she goes barefoot as well as shod. I +believe that she dwells rather oftener in alleys and by-ways than she +does in courts and palaces, and that it is good, and pleasant, and +profitable to track her out, and follow her. I believe that to lay one’s +hand upon some of those rejected ones whom the world has too long +forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudest and most +thoughtless—“These creatures have the same elements and capacities of +goodness as yourselves, they are moulded in the same form, and made of +the same clay; and though ten times worse than you, may, in having +retained anything of their original nature amidst the trials and +distresses of their condition, be really ten times better;” I believe +that to do this is to pursue a worthy and not useless vocation. +Gentlemen, that you think so too, your fervent greeting sufficiently +assures me. That this feeling is alive in the Old World as well as in +the New, no man should know better than I—I, who have found such wide and +ready sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing it, we are but +treading in the steps of those great master-spirits who have gone before, +we know by reference to all the bright examples in our literature, from +Shakespeare downward. + +There is one other point connected with the labours (if I may call them +so) that you hold in such generous esteem, to which I cannot help +adverting. I cannot help expressing the delight, the more than happiness +it was to me to find so strong an interest awakened on this side of the +water, in favour of that little heroine of mine, to whom your president +has made allusion, who died in her youth. I had letters about that +child, in England, from the dwellers in log-houses among the morasses, +and swamps, and densest forests, and deep solitudes of the far west. +Many a sturdy hand, hard with the axe and spade, and browned by the +summer’s sun, has taken up the pen, and written to me a little history of +domestic joy or sorrow, always coupled, I am proud to say, with something +of interest in that little tale, or some comfort or happiness derived +from it, and my correspondent has always addressed me, not as a writer of +books for sale, resident some four or five thousand miles away, but as a +friend to whom he might freely impart the joys and sorrows of his own +fireside. Many a mother—I could reckon them now by dozens, not by +units—has done the like, and has told me how she lost such a child at +such a time, and where she lay buried, and how good she was, and how, in +this or that respect, she resembles Nell. I do assure you that no +circumstance of my life has given me one hundredth part of the +gratification I have derived from this source. I was wavering at the +time whether or not to wind up my Clock, {61} and come and see this +country, and this decided me. I felt as if it were a positive duty, as +if I were bound to pack up my clothes, and come and see my friends; and +even now I have such an odd sensation in connexion with these things, +that you have no chance of spoiling me. I feel as though we were +agreeing—as indeed we are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the +classes from which they are drawn—about third parties, in whom we had a +common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, I say to +myself “That’s for Oliver; I should not wonder if that was meant for +Smike; I have no doubt that is intended for Nell;” and so I become a much +happier, certainly, but a more sober and retiring man than ever I was +before. + +Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings me back, naturally +and of course, to you. Coming back to you, and being thereby reminded of +the pleasure we have in store in hearing the gentlemen who sit about me, +I arrive by the easiest, though not by the shortest course in the world, +at the end of what I have to say. But before I sit down, there is one +topic on which I am desirous to lay particular stress. It has, or should +have, a strong interest for us all, since to its literature every country +must look for one great means of refining and improving its people, and +one great source of national pride and honour. You have in America great +writers—great writers—who will live in all time, and are as familiar to +our lips as household words. Deriving (as they all do in a greater or +less degree, in their several walks) their inspiration from the +stupendous country that gave them birth, they diffuse a better knowledge +of it, and a higher love for it, all over the civilized world. I take +leave to say, in the presence of some of those gentleman, that I hope the +time is not far distant when they, in America, will receive of right some +substantial profit and return in England from their labours; and when we, +in England, shall receive some substantial profit and return in America +for ours. Pray do not misunderstand me. Securing to myself from day to +day the means of an honourable subsistence, I would rather have the +affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I would have heaps and mines +of gold. But the two things do not seem to me incompatible. They cannot +be, for nothing good is incompatible with justice; there must be an +international arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, and +I am confident that the time is not far distant when America will do +hers. It becomes the character of a great country; _firstly_, because it +is justice; _secondly_, because without it you never can have, and keep, +a literature of your own. + +Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such as are not often +awakened, and can never be expressed. As I understand it to be the +pleasant custom here to finish with a toast, I would beg to give you: +AMERICA AND ENGLAND, and may they never have any division but the +Atlantic between them. + + + + +IV. +FEBRUARY 7, 1842. + + +GENTLEMEN,—To say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which you +have drunk the toast just now so eloquently proposed to you—to say that I +give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more than compound +interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless the best acknowledgments +would be beside such genial hospitality as yours, is nothing. To say +that in this winter season, flowers have sprung up in every footstep’s +length of the path which has brought me here; that no country ever smiled +more pleasantly than yours has smiled on me, and that I have rarely +looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which lies before me +now, {63} is nothing. + +But it is something to be no stranger in a strange place—to feel, sitting +at a board for the first time, the ease and affection of an old guest, +and to be at once on such intimate terms with the family as to have a +homely, genuine interest in its every member—it is, I say, something to +be in this novel and happy frame of mind. And, as it is of your +creation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance in urging it as +a reason why, in addressing you, I should not so much consult the form +and fashion of my speech, as I should employ that universal language of +the heart, which you, and such as you, best teach, and best can +understand. Gentlemen, in that universal language—common to you in +America, and to us in England, as that younger mother-tongue, which, by +the means of, and through the happy union of our two great countries, +shall be spoken ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of the +globe—I thank you. + +I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have more than once +had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy for an author to speak +of his own books. If the task be a difficult one at any time, its +difficulty, certainly, is not diminished when a frequent recurrence to +the same theme has left one nothing new to say. Still, I feel that, in a +company like this, and especially after what has been said by the +President, that I ought not to pass lightly over those labours of love, +which, if they had no other merit, have been the happy means of bringing +us together. + +It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an author’s personal +character from his writings. It may be that you cannot. I think it very +likely, for many reasons, that you cannot. But, at least, a reader will +rise from the perusal of a book with some defined and tangible idea of +the writer’s moral creed and broad purposes, if he has any at all; and it +is probable enough that he may like to have this idea confirmed from the +author’s lips, or dissipated by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral +creed—which is a very wide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects +and parties—is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wish to +diffuse faith in the existence—yes, of beautiful things, even in those +conditions of society, which are so degenerate, degraded, and forlorn, +that, at first sight, it would seem as though they could not be described +but by a strange and terrible reversal of the words of Scripture, “God +said, Let there be light, and there was none.” I take it that we are +born, and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and energies, in trust for +the many, and not for the few. That we cannot hold in too strong a light +of disgust and contempt, before the view of others, all meanness, +falsehood, cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, +that nothing is high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing is +low, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson taught us in the +great book of nature. This is the lesson which may be read, alike in the +bright track of the stars, and in the dusty course of the poorest thing +that drags its tiny length upon the ground. This is the lesson ever +uppermost in the thoughts of that inspired man, who tells us that there +are + + “Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, + Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” + +Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no loss to +refer your favour and your generous hospitality back to the right source. +While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of being what it is, this +were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should care very little for your +smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the other, that if, instead of being +what I am, I were the greatest genius that ever trod the earth, and had +diverted myself for the oppression and degradation of mankind, you would +despise and reject me. I hope you will, whenever, through such means, I +give you the opportunity. Trust me, that, whenever you give me the like +occasion, I will return the compliment with interest. + +Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of confidence you +have engendered between us, and as I have made a kind of compact with +myself that I never will, while I remain in America, omit an opportunity +of referring to a topic in which I and all others of my class on both +sides of the water are equally interested—equally interested, there is no +difference between us, I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two +words: _International Copyright_. I use them in no sordid sense, believe +me, and those who know me best, best know that. For myself, I would +rather that my children, coming after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by +the general feeling of society that their father was beloved, and had +been of some use, than I would have them ride in their carriages, and +know by their banker’s books that he was rich. But I do not see, I +confess, why one should be obliged to make the choice, or why fame, +besides playing that delightful _reveil_ for which she is so justly +celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet a few notes of a different +kind from those with which she has hitherto contented herself. + +It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose words +went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, if there had existed +any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk beneath the mighty +pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures of his +fancy to the crowd which swarm about you in your summer walks, and gather +round your winter evening hearths. + +As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that touching +scene in the great man’s life, when he lay upon his couch, surrounded by +his family, and listened, for the last time, to the rippling of the river +he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, +faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and body by his honourable +struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of his own +imagination—Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb +Balderstone, Dominie Sampson—all the familiar throng—with cavaliers, and +Puritans, and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and +fading away in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from +traversing the world, and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow, +that, from all those lands into which they had carried gladness, +instruction, and delight for millions, they brought him not one friendly +hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him +from that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house +and hut of which his own books were read in his own tongue, one grateful +dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every man who goes +from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would +but remember this, and bring the recollection home! + +Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that. +You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already +one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have given +those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollecting it +with pride and interest. Heaven knows that, although I should grow ever +so gray, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in my life. But +I am glad to think that from this time you are inseparably connected with +every recurrence of this day; and, that on its periodical return, I shall +always, in imagination, have the unfading pleasure of entertaining you as +my guests, in return for the gratification you have afforded me to-night. + + + + +V. +NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842. + + +[At a dinner presided over by Washington Irving, when nearly eight +hundred of the most distinguished citizens of New York were present, +“Charles Dickens, the Literary Guest of the Nation,” having been +“proferred as a sentiment” by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens rose, and spoke +as follows:] + +GENTLEMEN,—I don’t know how to thank you—I really don’t know how. You +would naturally suppose that my former experience would have given me +this power, and that the difficulties in my way would have been +diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the reverse, and I have +completely baulked the ancient proverb that “a rolling stone gathers no +moss;” and in my progress to this city I have collected such a weight of +obligations and acknowledgment—I have picked up such an enormous mass of +fresh moss at every point, and was so struck by the brilliant scenes of +Monday night, that I thought I could never by any possibility grow any +bigger. I have made, continually, new accumulations to such an extent +that I am compelled to stand still, and can roll no more! + +Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stories, or +balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their own accord—as I do not—it +presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent holds good in +this case. When I have remembered the short time I have before me to +spend in this land of mighty interests, and the poor opportunity I can at +best have of acquiring a knowledge of, and forming an acquaintance with +it, I have felt it almost a duty to decline the honours you so generously +heap upon me, and pass more quietly among you. For Argus himself, though +he had but one mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the reception +of a public entertainment once a-week too much for his greatest activity; +and, as I would lose no scrap of the rich instruction and the delightful +knowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already I have gleaned a +great deal from your hospitals and common jails),—I have resolved to take +up my staff, and go my way rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands +with America, not at parties but at home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I +say to-night, with a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful +feelings, that I bear, and shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, +your affectionate and your noble greeting, which it is utterly impossible +to convey in words. No European sky without, and no cheerful home or +well-warmed room within shall ever shut out this land from my vision. I +shall often hear your words of welcome in my quiet room, and oftenest +when most quiet; and shall see your faces in the blazing fire. If I +should live to grow old, the scenes of this and other evenings will shine +as brightly to my dull eyes fifty years hence as now; and the honours you +bestow upon me shall be well remembered and paid back in my undying love, +and honest endeavours for the good of my race. + +Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this first person singular, +and then I shall close. I came here in an open, honest, and confiding +spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt a deep sympathy in your land; +had I felt otherwise, I should have kept away. As I came here, and am +here, without the least admixture of one-hundredth part of one grain of +base alloy, without one feeling of unworthy reference to self in any +respect, I claim, in regard to the past, for the last time, my right in +reason, in truth, and in justice, to approach, as I have done on two +former occasions, a question of literary interest. I claim that justice +be done; and I prefer this claim as one who has a right to speak and be +heard. I have only to add that I shall be as true to you as you have +been to me. I recognize in your enthusiastic approval of the creatures +of my fancy, your enlightened care for the happiness of the many, your +tender regard for the afflicted, your sympathy for the downcast, your +plans for correcting and improving the bad, and for encouraging the good; +and to advance these great objects shall be, to the end of my life, my +earnest endeavour, to the extent of my humble ability. Having said thus +much with reference to myself, I shall have the pleasure of saying a few +words with reference to somebody else. + +There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of my +books—I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop—wrote to me in +England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I +had written the book under every circumstance of disappointment, of +discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should have +found in the receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. I +answered him, {70} and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands +autographically, as if no ocean rolled between us. I came here to this +city eager to see him, and [_laying his hand it upon Irving’s shoulder_] +here he sits! I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to see +him here to-night in this capacity. + +Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don’t go upstairs to bed two nights +out of the seven—as a very creditable witness near at hand can testify—I +say I do not go to bed two nights out of the seven without taking +Washington Irving under my arm; and, when I don’t take him, I take his +own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington Irving! Why, of whom but him +was I thinking the other day when I came up by the Hog’s Back, the Frying +Pan, Hell Gate, and all these places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited +Shakespeare’s birthplace, and went beneath the roof where he first saw +light, whose name but _his_ was pointed out to me upon the wall? +Washington Irving—Diedrich Knickerbocker—Geoffrey Crayon—why, where can +you go that they have not been there before? Is there an English farm—is +there an English stream, an English city, or an English country-seat, +where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? +Has it no ancient shades or quiet streets? + +In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an old +oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar’s Head, a little man with a red +nose, and an oilskin hat. When I came away he was sitting there +still!—not a man _like_ him, but the same man—with the nose of immortal +redness and the hat of an undying glaze! Crayon, while there, was on +terms of intimacy with a certain radical fellow, who used to go about, +with a hatful of newspapers, wofully out at elbows, and with a coat of +great antiquity. Why, gentlemen, I know that man—Tibbles the elder, and +he has not changed a hair; and, when I came away, he charged me to give +his best respects to Washington Irving! + +Leaving the town and the rustic life of England—forgetting this man, if +we can—putting out of mind the country church-yard and the broken +heart—let us cross the water again, and ask who has associated himself +most closely with the Italian peasantry and the bandits of the Pyrenees? +When the traveller enters his little chamber beyond the Alps—listening to +the dim echoes of the long passages and spacious corridors—damp, and +gloomy, and cold—as he hears the tempest beating with fury against his +window, and gazes at the curtains, dark, and heavy, and covered with +mould—and when all the ghost-stories that ever were told come up before +him—amid all his thick-coming fancies, whom does he think of? Washington +Irving. + +Go farther still: go to the Moorish Mountains, sparkling full in the +moonlight—go among the water-carriers and the village gossips, living +still as in days of old—and who has travelled among them before you, and +peopled the Alhambra and made eloquent its shadows? Who awakes there a +voice from every hill and in every cavern, and bids legends, which for +centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or watched unwinkingly, start up +and pass before you in all their life and glory? + +But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbus upon his gallant ship, +traversed with him the dark and mighty ocean, leaped upon the land and +planted there the flag of Spain, but this same man, now sitting by my +side? And being here at home again, who is a more fit companion for +money-diggers? and what pen but his has made Rip Van Winkle, playing at +nine-pins on that thundering afternoon, as much part and parcel of the +Catskill Mountains as any tree or crag that they can boast? + +But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and which I am apt to +pursue; and lest I should be tempted now to talk too long about them, I +will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most appropriate, I am sure, +in the presence of such writers as Bryant, Halleck, and—but I suppose I +must not mention the ladies here— + + THE LITERATURE OF AMERICA: + +She well knows how to do honour to her own literature and to that of +other lands, when she chooses Washington Irving for her representative in +the country of Cervantes. + + + + +VI. +MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843. + + +[This address was delivered at a soirée of the members of the Manchester, +Athenæum, at which Mr. Dickens presided. Among the other speakers on the +occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I am sure I need scarcely tell you that I am very +proud and happy; and that I take it as a great distinction to be asked to +come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when, even with the +brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see before me, I can hail it as +the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance of all, that we assemble +together here, even here, upon neutral ground, where we have no more +knowledge of party difficulties, or public animosities between side and +side, or between man and man, than if we were a public meeting in the +commonwealth of Utopia. + +Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds, this +assembly is not less interesting to me, believe me—although, personally, +almost a stranger here—than it is interesting to you; and I take it, that +it is not of greater importance to all of us than it is to every man who +has learned to know that he has an interest in the moral and social +elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, happiness, and +improvement, of the community at large. Not even those who saw the first +foundation of your Athenæum laid, and watched its progress, as I know +they did, almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living +creature, until it reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town—not +even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its +usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am persuaded, +to exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may thrive and prosper, +than scores of thousands at a distance, who—whether consciously or +unconsciously, matters not—have, in the principle of its success and +bright example, a deep and personal concern. + +It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town, this +little world of labour, that she should stand out foremost in the +foremost rank in such a cause. It well becomes her, that, among her +numerous and noble public institutions, she should have a splendid temple +sacred to the education and improvement of a large class of those who, in +their various useful stations, assist in the production of our wealth, +and in rendering her name famous through the world. I think it is grand +to know, that, while her factories re-echo with the clanking of +stupendous engines, and the whirl and rattle of machinery, the immortal +mechanism of God’s own hand, the mind, is not forgotten in the din and +uproar, but is lodged and tended in a palace of its own. That it is a +structure deeply fixed and rooted in the public spirit of this place, and +built to last, I have no more doubt, judging from the spectacle I see +before me, and from what I know of its brief history, than I have of the +reality of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars that spring up +about us. + +You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the Athenæum was +projected at a time when commerce was in a vigorous and flourishing +condition, and when those classes of society to which it particularly +addresses itself were fully employed, and in the receipt of regular +incomes. A season of depression almost without a parallel ensued, and +large numbers of young men employed in warehouses and offices suddenly +found their occupation gone, and themselves reduced to very straitened +and penurious circumstances. This altered state of things led, as I am +told, to the compulsory withdrawal of many of the members, to a +proportionate decrease in the expected funds, and to the incurrence of a +debt of £3,000. By the very great zeal and energy of all concerned, and +by the liberality of those to whom they applied for help, that debt is +now in rapid course of being discharged. A little more of the same +indefatigable exertion on the one hand, and a little more of the same +community of feeling upon the other, and there will be no such thing; the +figures will be blotted out for good and all, and, from that time, the +Athenæum may be said to belong to you, and to your heirs for ever. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most thriving, and in +its least flourishing condition—here, with its cheerful rooms, its +pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library of 6,000 +volumes, its classes for the study of the foreign languages, elocution, +music; its opportunities of discussion and debate, of healthful bodily +exercise, and, though last not least—for by this I set great store, as a +very novel and excellent provision—its opportunities of blameless, +rational enjoyment, here it is, open to every youth and man in this great +town, accessible to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all these +benefits, and the inestimable ends to which they lead, can set aside one +sixpence weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the subscription, and +upon the fact that the number of members has considerably more than +doubled within the last twelve months, as strides in the path of the very +best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the history of +mankind. + +I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a prospect +before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake up the ashes of +the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be urged by men of all +parties against institutions such as this, whose interests we are met to +promote; but their philosophy was always to be summed up in the unmeaning +application of one short sentence. How often have we heard from a large +class of men wise in their generation, who would really seem to be born +and bred for no other purpose than to pass into currency counterfeit and +mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some other +criminals to utter base coin—how often have we heard from them, as an +all-convincing argument, that “a little learning is a dangerous thing?” +Why, a little hanging was considered a very dangerous thing, according to +the same authorities, with this difference, that, because a little +hanging was dangerous, we had a great deal of it; and, because a little +learning was dangerous, we were to have none at all. Why, when I hear +such cruel absurdities gravely reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt +whether the parrots of society are not more pernicious to its interests +than its birds of prey. I should be glad to hear such people’s estimate +of the comparative danger of “a little learning” and a vast amount of +ignorance; I should be glad to know which they consider the most prolific +parent of misery and crime. Descending a little lower in the social +scale, I should be glad to assist them in their calculations, by carrying +them into certain gaols and nightly refuges I know of, where my own heart +dies within me, when I see thousands of immortal creatures condemned, +without alternative or choice, to tread, not what our great poet calls +the “primrose path” to the everlasting bonfire, but one of jaded flints +and stones, laid down by brutal ignorance, and held together, like the +solid rocks, by years of this most wicked axiom. + +Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright in deed and +thought, whether they would rather have ignorant or enlightened persons +in their own employment? Why, we have had their answer in this building; +we have it in this company; we have it emphatically given in the +munificent generosity of your own merchants of Manchester, of all sects +and kinds, when this establishment was first proposed. But are the +advantages derivable by the people from institutions such as this, only +of a negative character? If a little learning be an innocent thing, has +it no distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon the mind? The +old doggerel rhyme, so often written in the beginning of books, says that + + “When house and lands are gone and spent, + Then learning is most excellent;” + +but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, and say that + + “Though house and lands be never got, + Learning can give what they can_not_.” + +And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned by every +man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a place as the +Athenæum, is self-respect—an inward dignity of character, which, once +acquired and righteously maintained, nothing—no, not the hardest +drudgery, nor the direst poverty—can vanquish. Though he should find it +hard for a season even to keep the wolf—hunger—from his door, let him but +once have chased the dragon—ignorance—from his hearth, and self-respect +and hope are left him. You could no more deprive him of those sustaining +qualities by loss or destruction of his worldly goods, than you could, by +plucking out his eyes, take from him an internal consciousness of the +bright glory of the sun. + +The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his sphere of +hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a place as the +Athenæum, acquires for himself that property of soul which has in all +times upheld struggling men of every degree, but self-made men especially +and always. He secures to himself that faithful companion which, while +it has ever lent the light of its countenance to men of rank and eminence +who have deserved it, has ever shed its brightest consolations on men of +low estate and almost hopeless means. It took its patient seat beside +Sir Walter Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; it laid its head +upon the block with More; but it did not disdain to watch the stars with +Ferguson, the shepherd’s boy; it walked the streets in mean attire with +Crabbe; it was a poor barber here in Lancashire with Arkwright; it was a +tallow-chandler’s son with Franklin; it worked at shoemaking with +Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the plough with Burns; and, high +above the noise of loom and hammer, it whispers courage even at this day +in ears I could name in Sheffield and in Manchester. + +The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place learns, the +better, gentler, kinder man he must become. When he knows how much great +minds have suffered for the truth in every age and time, and to what +dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will become more +tolerant of other men’s belief in all matters, and will incline more +leniently to their sentiments when they chance to differ from his own. +Understanding that the relations between himself and his employers +involve a mutual duty and responsibility, he will discharge his part of +the implied contract cheerfully, satisfactorily, and honourably; for the +history of every useful life warns him to shape his course in that +direction. + +The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish kind, but +extend themselves to his home, and to those whom it contains. Something +of what he hears or reads within such walls can scarcely fail to become +at times a topic of discourse by his own fireside, nor can it ever fail +to lead to larger sympathies with man, and to a higher veneration for the +great Creator of all the wonders of this universe. It appears to his +home and his homely feeling in other ways; for at certain times he +carries there his wife and daughter, or his sister, or, possibly, some +bright-eyed acquaintance of a more tender description. Judging from what +I see before me, I think it is very likely; I am sure I would if I could. +He takes her there to enjoy a pleasant evening, to be gay and happy. +Sometimes it may possibly happen that he dates his tenderness from the +Athenæum. I think that is a very excellent thing, too, and not the least +among the advantages of the institution. In any case, I am sure the +number of bright eyes and beaming faces which grace this meeting to-night +by their presence, will never be among the least of its excellences in my +recollection. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, the pleasing +task your favour has devolved upon me, or the strong and inspiring +confirmation I have to-night, of all the hopes and reliances I have ever +placed upon institutions of this nature. In the latter point of view—in +their bearing upon this latter point—I regard them as of great +importance, deeming that the more intelligent and reflective society in +the mass becomes, and the more readers there are, the more distinctly +writers of all kinds will be able to throw themselves upon the truthful +feeling of the people and the more honoured and the more useful +literature must be. At the same time, I must confess that, if there had +been an Athenæum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some +leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which was very +cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably haggled for by the +groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity might probably have lacked +the information that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. But +it is upon a much better and wider scale, let me say it once again—it is +in the effect of such institutions upon the great social system, and the +peace and happiness of mankind, that I delight to contemplate them; and, +in my heart, I am quite certain that long after your institution, and +others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, the noble harvest of +the seed sown in them will shine out brightly in the wisdom, the mercy, +and the forbearance of another race. + + + + +VII. +LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844. + + +[The following address was delivered at a soirée of the Liverpool +Mechanics’ Institution, at which Mr. Dickens presided.] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It was rather hard of you to take away my breath +before I spoke a word; but I would not thank you, even if I could, for +the favour which has set me in this place, or for the generous kindness +which has greeted me so warmly,—because my first strong impulse still +would be, although I had that power, to lose sight of all personal +considerations in the high intent and meaning of this numerous +assemblage, in the contemplation of the noble objects to which this +building is devoted, of its brilliant and inspiring history, of that +rough, upward track, so bravely trodden, which it leaves behind, and that +bright path of steadily-increasing usefulness which lies stretched out +before it. My first strong impulse still would be to exchange +congratulations with you, as the members of one united family, on the +thriving vigour of this strongest child of a strong race. My first +strong impulse still would be, though everybody here had twice as many +hundreds of hands as there are hundreds of persons present, to shake them +in the spirit, everyone, always, allow me to say, excepting those hands +(and there are a few such here), which, with the constitutional infirmity +of human nature, I would rather salute in some more tender fashion. + +When I first had the honour of communicating with your Committee with +reference to this celebration, I had some selfish hopes that the visit +proposed to me might turn out to be one of congratulation, or, at least, +of solicitous inquiry; for they who receive a visitor in any season of +distress are easily touched and moved by what he says, and I entertained +some confident expectation of making a mighty strong impression on you. +But, when I came to look over the printed documents which were forwarded +to me at the same time, and with which you are all tolerably familiar, +these anticipations very speedily vanished, and left me bereft of all +consolation, but the triumphant feeling to which I have referred. For +what do I find, on looking over those brief chronicles of this swift +conquest over ignorance and prejudice, in which no blood has been poured +out, and no treaty signed but that one sacred compact which recognises +the just right of every man, whatever his belief, or however humble his +degree, to aspire, and to have some means of aspiring, to be a better and +a wiser man? I find that, in 1825, certain misguided and turbulent +persons proposed to erect in Liverpool an unpopular, dangerous, +irreligious, and revolutionary establishment, called a Mechanics’ +Institution; that, in 1835, Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on +pretty comfortably in the meantime, in spite of it, the first stone of a +new and spacious edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; that, it +was afterwards, at different periods, considerably enlarged; that, in +1844, conspicuous amongst the public beauties of a beautiful town, here +it stands triumphant, its enemies lived down, its former students +attesting, in their various useful callings and pursuits, the sound, +practical information it afforded them; its members numbering +considerably more than 3,000, and setting in rapidly for 6,000 at least; +its library comprehending 11,000 volumes, and daily sending forth its +hundreds of books into private homes; its staff of masters and officers, +amounting to half-a-hundred in themselves; its schools, conveying every +sort of instruction, high and low, adapted to the labour, means, +exigencies, and convenience of nearly every class and grade of persons. +I was here this morning, and in its spacious halls I found stores of the +wonders worked by nature in the air, in the forest, in the cavern, and in +the sea—stores of the surpassing engines devised by science for the +better knowledge of other worlds, and the greater happiness of +this—stores of those gentler works of art, which, though achieved in +perishable stone, by yet more perishable hands of dust, are in their +influence immortal. With such means at their command, so well-directed, +so cheaply shared, and so extensively diffused, well may your Committee +say, as they have done in one of their Reports, that the success of this +establishment has far exceeded their most sanguine expectations. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whose words they +quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the wonderful effects of little +things and small beginnings, that the influence of the loadstone was +first discovered in particles of iron, and not in iron bars, so they may +lay it to their hearts, that when they combined together to form the +institution which has risen to this majestic height, they issued on a +field of enterprise, the glorious end of which they cannot even now +discern. Every man who has felt the advantages of, or has received +improvement in this place, carries its benefits into the society in which +he moves, and puts them out at compound interest; and what the blessed +sum may be at last, no man can tell. Ladies and gentlemen, with that +Christian prelate whose name appears on your list of honorary Members; +that good and liberal man who once addressed you within these walls, in a +spirit worthy of his calling, and of his High Master—I look forward from +this place, as from a tower, to the time when high and low, and rich and +poor, shall mutually assist, improve, and educate each other. + +I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, with its 3,200 +members, and at least 3,200 arguments in every one, to enter on any +advocacy of the principle of Mechanics’ Institutions, or to discuss the +subject with those who do or ever did object to them. I should as soon +think of arguing the point with those untutored savages whose mode of +life you last year had the opportunity of witnessing; indeed, I am +strongly inclined to believe them by far the more rational class of the +two. Moreover, if the institution itself be not a sufficient answer to +all such objections, then there is no such thing in fact or reason, human +or divine. Neither will I venture to enter into those details of the +management of this place which struck me most on the perusal of its +papers; but I cannot help saying how much impressed and gratified I was, +as everybody must be who comes to their perusal for the first time, by +the extraordinary munificence with which this institution has been +endowed by certain gentlemen. + +Amongst the peculiar features of management which made the greatest +impression on me, I may observe that that regulation which empowers +fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, to introduce their sons +who are minors; and masters, on payment of the astoundingly small sum of +five shillings annually, in like manner their apprentices, is not the +least valuable of its privileges; and, certainly not the one least +valuable to society. And, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot say to you what +pleasure I derived from the perusal of an apparently excellent report in +your local papers of a meeting held here some short time since, in aid of +the formation of a girls’ school in connexion with this institution. +This is a new and striking chapter in the history of these institutions; +it does equal credit to the gallantry and policy of this, and disposes +one to say of it with a slight parody on the words of Burns, that + + “Its ’prentice han’ it tried on man, + And then it _taught_ the lasses, O.” + +That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessons are oftenest +heeded in after life, should be well taught themselves, is a proposition +few reasonable men will gainsay; and, certainly, to breed up good +husbands on the one hand, and good wives on the other, does appear as +reasonable and straightforward a plan as could well be devised for the +improvement of the next generation. + +This, and what I see before me, naturally brings me to our fairer +members, in respect of whom I have no doubt you will agree with me, that +they ought to be admitted to the widest possible extent, and on the +lowest possible terms; and, ladies, let me venture to say to you, that +you never did a wiser thing in all your lives than when you turned your +favourable regard on such an establishment as this—for wherever the light +of knowledge is diffused, wherever the humanizing influence of the arts +and sciences extends itself, wherever there is the clearest perception of +what is beautiful, and good, and most redeeming, amid all the faults and +vices of mankind, there your character, your virtues, your graces, your +better nature, will be the best appreciated, and there the truest homage +will be proudly paid to you. You show best, trust me, in the clearest +light; and every ray that falls upon you at your own firesides, from any +book or thought communicated within these walls, will raise you nearer to +the angels in the eyes you care for most. + +I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen, between you and +the pleasure we all anticipate in hearing other gentlemen, and in +enjoying those social pleasures with which it is a main part of the +wisdom of this society to adorn and relieve its graver pursuits. We all +feel, I am sure, being here, that we are truly interested in the cause of +human improvement and rational education, and that we pledge ourselves, +everyone as far as in him lies, to extend the knowledge of the benefits +afforded in this place, and to bear honest witness in its favour. To +those who yet remain without its walls, but have the means of purchasing +its advantages, we make appeal, and in a friendly and forbearing spirit +say, “Come in, and be convinced— + + ‘Who enters here, leaves _doubt_ behind.’” + +If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and are superior to its +advantages, so much the more should you make one in sympathy with those +who are below you. Beneath this roof we breed the men who, in the time +to come, must be found working for good or evil, in every quarter of +society. If mutual respect and forbearance among various classes be not +found here, where so many men are trained up in so many grades, to enter +on so many roads of life, dating their entry from one common +starting-point, as they are all approaching, by various paths, one common +end, where else can that great lesson be imbibed? Differences of wealth, +of rank, of intellect, we know there must be, and we respect them; but we +would give to all the means of taking out one patent of nobility, and we +define it, in the words of a great living poet, who is one of us, and who +uses his great gifts, as he holds them in trust, for the general welfare— + + “Howe’er it be, it seems to me + ’Tis only noble to be good: + True hearts are more than coronets, + And simple faith than Norman blood.” {88} + + + + +VIII. +BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844. + + +[The following speech was delivered at a Conversazione, in aid of the +funds of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution, at which Mr Dickens +presided.] + +YOU will think it very unwise, or very self-denying in me, in such an +assembly, in such a splendid scene, and after such a welcome, to +congratulate myself on having nothing new to say to you: but I do so, +notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I had the honour +of attending at Manchester, shortly before Christmas, and at Liverpool, +only the night before last, for a purpose similar to that which brings +you together this evening; and looking down a short perspective of +similar engagements, I feel gratification at the thought that I shall +very soon have nothing at all to say; in which case, I shall be content +to stake my reputation, like the Spectator of Addison, and that other +great periodical speaker, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on my +powers of listening. + +This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with, are not the only +reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial, and peculiar interest in this +night’s proceedings. The Polytechnic Institution of Birmingham is in its +infancy—struggling into life under all those adverse and disadvantageous +circumstances which, to a greater or less extent, naturally beset all +infancy; but I would much rather connect myself with it now, however +humble, in its days of difficulty and of danger, than look back on its +origin when it may have become strong, and rich, and powerful. I should +prefer an intimate association with it now, in its early days and +apparent struggles, to becoming its advocate and acquaintance, its +fair-weather friend, in its high and palmy days. I would rather be able +to say I knew it in its swaddling-clothes, than in maturer age. Its two +elder brothers have grown old and died: their chests were weak—about +their cradles nurses shook their heads, and gossips groaned; but the +present institution shot up, amidst the ruin of those which have fallen, +with an indomitable constitution, with vigorous and with steady pulse; +temperate, wise, and of good repute; and by perseverance it has become a +very giant. Birmingham is, in my mind and in the minds of most men, +associated with many giants; and I no more believe that this young +institution will turn out sickly, dwarfish, or of stunted growth, than I +do that when the glass-slipper of my chairmanship shall fall off, and the +clock strike twelve to-night, this hall will be turned into a pumpkin. I +found that strong belief upon the splendid array of grace and beauty by +which I am surrounded, and which, if it only had one-hundredth part of +the effect upon others it has upon me, could do anything it pleased with +anything and anybody. I found my strong conviction, in the second place, +upon the public spirit of the town of Birmingham—upon the name and fame +of its capitalists and working men; upon the greatness and importance of +its merchants and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are +constantly in progress; upon the skill and intelligence of its artisans, +which are daily developed; and the increasing knowledge of all portions +of the community. All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that your +institution will advance—that it will and must progress, and that you +will not be content with lingering leagues behind. + +I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with the +object of this assembly; and it is, that the resolutions about to be +proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian or class +nature; that they do not confine themselves to any one single +institution, but assert the great and omnipotent principles of +comprehensive education everywhere and under every circumstance. I beg +leave to say that I concur, heart and hand, in those principles, and will +do all in my power for their advancement; for I hold, in accordance with +the imperfect knowledge which I possess, that it is impossible for any +fabric of society to go on day after day, and year after year, from +father to son, and from grandfather to grandson, punishing men for not +engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice of crime, without +showing them what virtue is, and where it best can be found—in justice, +religion, and truth. The only reason that can possibly be adduced +against it is one founded on fiction—namely, the case where an obdurate +old geni, in the “Arabian Nights,” was bound upon taking the life of a +merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. I +recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of charming fancies, which I +consider not inappropriate: it is a case where a powerful spirit has been +imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, in a casket with a leaden cover, and +the seal of Solomon upon it; there he had lain neglected for many +centuries, and during that period had made many different vows: at first, +that he would reward magnificently those who should release him; and at +last, that he would destroy them. Now, there is a spirit of great +power—the Spirit of Ignorance—which is shut up in a vessel of leaden +composition, and sealed with the seal of many, many Solomons, and which +is effectually in the same position: release it in time, and it will +bless, restore, and reanimate society; but let it lie under the rolling +waves of years, and its blind revenge is sure to lead to certain +destruction. That there are classes which, if rightly treated, +constitute strength, and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it impossible to +deny—by these classes I mean industrious, intelligent, and honourably +independent men, in whom the higher classes of Birmingham are especially +interested, and bound to afford them the means of instruction and +improvement, and to ameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be +it from me (and I wish to be most particularly understood) to attempt to +depreciate the excellent Church Instruction Societies, or the worthy, +sincere, and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen by whom they are +usually conducted; on the contrary, I believe that they have done, and +are doing, much good, and are deserving of high praise; but I hope that, +without offence, in a community such as Birmingham, there are other +objects not unworthy in the sight of heaven, and objects of recognised +utility which are worthy of support—principles which are practised in +word and deed in Polytechnic Institutions—principles for the diffusion of +which honest men of all degrees and of every creed might associate +together, on an independent footing and on neutral ground, and at a small +expense, for the better understanding and the greater consideration of +each other, and for the better cultivation of the happiness of all: for +it surely cannot be allowed that those who labour day by day, surrounded +by machinery, shall be permitted to degenerate into machines themselves, +but, on the contrary, they should assert their common origin from their +Creator, at the hands of those who are responsible and thinking men. +There is, indeed, no difference in the main with respect to the dangers +of ignorance and the advantages of knowledge between those who hold +different opinions—for it is to be observed, that those who are most +distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to +exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was pleasantly +illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage with me +there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in alluding to him, +for I know that he is not in the room, having got out far short of +Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully as to the ruinous +effects and rapid spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the +virtues of the slow-going old stage coaches. Now I, entertaining some +little lingering kindness for the road, made shift to express my +concurrence with the old gentleman’s opinion, without any great +compromise of principle. Well, we got on tolerably comfortably together, +and when the engine, with a frightful screech, dived into some dark +abyss, like some strange aquatic monster, the old gentleman said it would +never do, and I agreed with him. When it parted from each successive +station, with a shock and a shriek as if it had had a double-tooth drawn, +the old gentleman shook his head, and I shook mine. When he burst forth +against such new-fangled notions, and said no good could come of them, I +did not contest the point. But I found that when the speed of the engine +was abated, or there was a prolonged stay at any station, up the old +gentleman was at arms, and his watch was instantly out of his pocket, +denouncing the slowness of our progress. Now I could not help comparing +this old gentleman to that ingenious class of persons who are in the +constant habit of declaiming against the vices and crimes of society, and +at the same time are the first and foremost to assert that vice and crime +have not their common origin in ignorance and discontent. + +The good work, however, in spite of all political and party differences, +has been well begun; we are all interested in it; it is advancing, and +cannot be stopped by any opposition, although it may be retarded in this +place or in that, by the indifference of the middle classes, with whom +its successful progress chiefly rests. Of this success I cannot +entertain a doubt; for whenever the working classes have enjoyed an +opportunity of effectually rebutting accusations which falsehood or +thoughtlessness have brought against them, they always avail themselves +of it, and show themselves in their true characters; and it was this +which made the damage done to a single picture in the National Gallery of +London, by some poor lunatic or cripple, a mere matter of newspaper +notoriety and wonder for some few days. This, then, establishes a fact +evident to the meanest comprehension—that any given number of thousands +of individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this country, can pass +through the national galleries or museums in seasons of holiday-making, +without damaging, in the slightest degree, those choice and valuable +collections. I do not myself believe that the working classes ever were +the wanton or mischievous persons they were so often and so long +represented to be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some men take +it into their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact, without being +particular about the premises; and that the idle and the prejudiced, not +wishing to have the trouble of forming opinions for themselves, take it +for granted—until the people have an opportunity of disproving the stigma +and vindicating themselves before the world. + +Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurred respecting an +equestrian statue in the metropolis, with respect to which a legend +existed that the sculptor hanged himself, because he had neglected to put +a girth to the horse. This story was currently believed for many years, +until it was inspected for altogether a different purpose, and it was +found to have had a girth all the time. + +But surely if, as is stated, the people are ill-disposed and mischievous, +that is the best reason that can be offered for teaching them better; and +if they are not, surely that is a reason for giving them every +opportunity of vindicating their injured reputation; and no better +opportunity could possibly be afforded than that of associating together +voluntarily for such high purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the +establishment of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any +case—nay, in every case—if we would reward honesty, if we would hold out +encouragement to good, if we would eradicate that which is evil or +correct that which is bad, education—comprehensive, liberal education—is +the one thing needful, and the only effective end. If I might apply to +my purpose, and turn into plain prose some words of Hamlet—not with +reference to any government or party (for party being, for the most part, +an irrational sort of thing, has no connexion with the object we have in +view)—if I might apply those words to education as Hamlet applied them to +the skull of Yorick, I would say—“Now hie thee to the council-chamber, +and tell them, though they lay it on in sounding thoughts and learned +words an inch thick, to this complexion they must come at last.” + + * * * * * + +In answer to a vote of thanks, {95} Mr. Dickens said, at the close of the +meeting— + +Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even—for every effect which I may +have made upon you, the compliment has been amply returned to me; but at +the same time I am as little disposed to say to you, ‘go and sin no +more,’ as I am to promise for myself that ‘I will never do so again.’ So +long as I can make you laugh and cry, I will; and you will readily +believe me, when I tell you, you cannot do too much on your parts to show +that we are still cordial and loving friends. To you, ladies of the +Institution, I am deeply and especially indebted. I sometimes [_pointing +to the word_ ‘_Boz_’ _in front of the great gallery_] think there is some +small quantity of magic in that very short name, and that it must consist +in its containing as many letters as the three graces, and they, every +one of them, being of your fair sisterhood. + +A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for an +eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man, sometimes bowstringing his +dependants indiscriminately in his moments of anger, but burying them in +great splendour in his moments of penitence, that whenever intelligence +was brought him of a new plot or turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry +was, ‘Who is she?’ meaning that a woman was at the bottom. Now, in my +small way, I differ from that potentate; for when there is any good to be +attained, the services of any ministering angel required, my first +inquiry is, ‘Where is she?’ and the answer invariably is, ‘Here.’ Proud +and happy am I indeed to thank you for your generosity— + + ‘A thousand times, good night; + A thousand times the worse to want your light.’ + + + + +IX. +GARDENERS AND GARDENING. +LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852. + + +[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution +was held on the above date at the London Tavern. The company numbered +more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the occasion, and an admirable +effect was produced by a profuse display of natural flowers upon the +tables and in the decoration of the room. The chair was taken by Mr. +Charles Dickens, who, in proposing the toast of the evening, spoke as +follows:—] + +FOR three times three years the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution has +been stimulated and encouraged by meetings such as this, and by three +times three cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous career. +[_The cheers were warmly given_.] + +Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel for the +plaintiff with nobody on the other side; but even if I had been placed in +that position ninety times nine, it would still be my duty to state a few +facts from the very short brief with which I have been provided. + +This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During the first five +years of its existence, it was not particularly robust, and seemed to +have been placed in rather a shaded position, receiving somewhat more +than its needful allowance of cold water. In 1843 it was removed into a +more favourable position, and grafted on a nobler stock, and it has now +borne fruit, and become such a vigorous tree that at present thirty-five +old people daily sit within the shelter of its branches, and all the +pensioners upon the list have been veritable gardeners, or the wives of +gardeners. It is managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the +excellent rule that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteen +years, and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be placed upon the +pensioners’ list without election, without canvass, without solicitation, +and as his independent right. I lay very great stress upon that +honourable characteristic of the charity, because the main principle of +any such institution should be to help those who help themselves. That +the Society’s pensioners do not become such so long as they are able to +support themselves, is evinced by the significant fact that the average +age of those now upon the list is seventy-seven; that they are not +wasteful is proved by the fact that the whole sum expended on their +relief is but £500 a-year; that the Institution does not restrict itself +to any narrow confines, is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners +come from all parts of England, whilst all the expenses are paid from the +annual income and interest on stock, and therefore are not +disproportionate to its means. + +Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a most +unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, an Institution which has for +its President a nobleman {98} whose whole possessions are remarkable for +taste and beauty, and whose gardener’s laurels are famous throughout the +world. In the list of its vice-presidents there are the names of many +noblemen and gentlemen of great influence and station, and I have been +struck in glancing through the list of its supporters, with the sums +written against the names of the numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein +comprised. I hope the day will come when every gardener in England will +be a member of the charity. + +The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this Institution +affords. His gains are not great; he knows gold and silver more as being +of the colour of fruits and flowers than by its presence in his pockets; +he is subjected to that kind of labour which renders him peculiarly +liable to infirmity; and when old age comes upon him, the gardener is of +all men perhaps best able to appreciate the merits of such an +institution. + +To all indeed, present and absent, who are descended from the first + + “gardener Adam and his wife,” + +the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture of flowers +there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary or exclusive. +The wind that blows over the cottager’s porch, sweeps also over the +grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain descends on the just and on the +unjust, so it communicates to all gardeners, both rich and poor, an +interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man, +in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is, +in some sort, the gardener of everybody else. + +The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and all +periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace and men of +war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The most ancient +people of the earth had gardens where there is now nothing but solitary +heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded cities gardens still in jugs and +basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; and even +the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years +of solitary confinement. Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes +and objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the +world’s remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort. + +I will call upon you to drink “Prosperity to the Gardeners’ Benevolent +Institution,” and I beg to couple with that toast the name of its noble +President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his +deeds, and who has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre +which no title and no riches could confer. + + * * * * * + +[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:—] + +My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I could wish +there were a closer parallel between myself and the American aloe. It is +particularly agreeable and appropriate to know that the parents of this +Institution are to be found in the seed and nursery trade; and the seed +having yielded such good fruit, and the nursery having produced such a +healthy child, I have the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of +the parents of the Institution. + + * * * * * + +[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:—] + +My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that its +conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always three in number. +Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three Graces, or to +those very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not know. Those mystic +letters are, however, most important, and no society can have officers of +more importance than its Treasurers, nor can it possibly give them too +much to do. + + + + +X. +BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853. + + +[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, in +Temple Row, Birmingham, a large company assembled to witness the +presentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of a +silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the +tribute, and the address which accompanied it, in the following words:—] + +GENTLEMEN, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, to tender my +acknowledgments to you, and through you, to those many friends of mine +whom you represent, for this honour and distinction which you have +conferred upon me. I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the +power of no great representative of numbers of people to awaken such +happiness in me as is inspired by this token of goodwill and remembrance, +coming to me direct and fresh from the numbers themselves. I am truly +sensible, gentlemen, that my friends who have united in this address are +partial in their kindness, and regard what I have done with too great +favour. But I may say, with reference to one class—some members of +which, I presume, are included there—that I should in my own eyes be very +unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous feeling which has +been evinced, and this occasion, instead of pleasure, would give me +nothing but pain, if I was unable to assure them, and those who are in +front of this assembly, that what the working people have found me +towards them in my books, I am throughout my life. Gentlemen, whenever I +have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience, +gentleness, the reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to +persuasion, and their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have +done so because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and +have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to +communicate to others. + +Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all price to +me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful specimens of the +workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I assure you, and with the +liveliest gratitude. You remember something, I daresay, of the old +romantic stories of those charmed rings which would lose their brilliance +when their wearer was in danger, or would press his finger reproachfully +when he was going to do wrong. In the very improbable event of my being +in the least danger of deserting the principles which have won me these +tokens, I am sure the diamond in that ring would assume a clouded aspect +to my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze a throb of pain out of my +treacherous heart. But I have not the least misgiving on that point; +and, in this confident expectation, I shall remove my own old diamond +ring from my left hand, and in future wear the Birmingham ring on my +right, where its grasp will keep me in mind of the good friends I have +here, and in vivid remembrance of this happy hour. + +Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the Society to whom +these rooms belong, that the presentation has taken place in an +atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an apartment decorated with so many +beautiful works of art, among which I recognize before me the productions +of friends of mine, whose labours and triumphs will never be subjects of +indifference to me. I thank those gentlemen for giving me the +opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some connexion +with their own proceedings; and, though last not least, I tender my +acknowledgments to that charming presence, without which nothing +beautiful can be complete, and which is endearingly associated with rings +of a plainer description, and which, I must confess, awakens in my mind +at the present moment a feeling of regret that I am not in a condition to +make an offer of these testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to commend me +very earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and to assure them +of my affectionate and heartfelt respect. + + * * * * * + +The company then adjourned to Dee’s Hotel, where a banquet took place, at +which about 220 persons were present, among whom were some of the most +distinguished of the Royal Academicians. To the toast of “The Literature +of England,” Mr. Dickens responded as follows:— + +Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers in that +great field of literature to which you have pledged the toast, to thank +you for the tribute you have paid to it. Such an honour, rendered by +acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if I may follow on the +same side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) who lately addressed +you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never forget—such +an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to me a two-sided illustration +of the position that literature holds in these latter and, of course, +“degenerate” days. To the great compact phalanx of the people, by whose +industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in +money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many others like it, have +arisen—to that great centre of support, that comprehensive experience, +and that beating heart, literature has turned happily from individual +patrons—sometimes munificent, often sordid, always few—and has there +found at once its highest purpose, its natural range of action, and its +best reward. Therefore it is right also, as it seems to me, not only +that literature should receive honour here, but that it should render +honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to +Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. From the shame +of the purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub +Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke’s table +to-day, and from the sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow—from that +venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even +to a greater extent than authors, because the statesman entertained a low +belief in the universality of corruption, while the author yielded only +to the dire necessity of his calling—from all such evils the people have +set literature free. And my creed in the exercise of that profession is, +that literature cannot be too faithful to the people in return—cannot too +ardently advocate the cause of their advancement, happiness, and +prosperity. I have heard it sometimes said—and what is worse, as +expressing something more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it +written—that literature has suffered by this change, that it has +degenerated by being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the case: +nor do I believe that you have made the discovery either. But let a good +book in these “bad” times be made accessible,—even upon an abstruse and +difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate interest to +mankind,—and my life on it, it shall be extensively bought, read, and +well considered. + +Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at this +moment many working men infinitely better versed in Shakespeare and in +Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold +dedications and dear books. I ask anyone to consider for himself who, at +this time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to the dissemination +of such useful publications as “Macaulay’s History,” “Layard’s +Researches,” “Tennyson’s Poems,” “The Duke of Wellington’s published +Despatches,” or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called minute) +discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is with all +these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon +art—if we had the good fortune to listen to one to-morrow—by my +distinguished friend the President of the Royal Academy. However small +the audience, however contracted the circle in the water, in the first +instance, the people are nearer the wider range outside, and the Sister +Arts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage and +improvement from their ready sympathy and cordial response. I may +instance the case of my friend Mr. Ward’s magnificent picture; {105} and +the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not now the +province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it +cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple,—on the +mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery—but that it must +be imbued with human passions and action, informed with human right and +wrong, and, being so informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its +trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged by God and its country. + +Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to trouble +you again. For this time I have only once again to repeat what I have +already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end with it. I would +simply say that I believe no true man, with anything to tell, need have +the least misgiving, either for himself or his message, before a large +number of hearers—always supposing that he be not afflicted with the +coxcombical idea of writing down to the popular intelligence, instead of +writing the popular intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, he be +above it;—and, provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is +in him, which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed +that he has some dim design of making himself understood. On behalf of +that literature to which you have done so much honour, I beg to thank you +most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most flattering reception +you have given to one whose claim is, that he has the distinction of +making it his profession. + + * * * * * + +Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, “The Educational +Institutions of Birmingham,” in the following speech: + +I am requested to propose—or, according to the hypothesis of my friend, +Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary character of a walking advertisement to +advertise to you—the Educational Institutions of Birmingham; an +advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure in calling your +attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in so many words, +mention the more prominent of these institutions, not because your local +memories require any prompting, but because the enumeration implies what +has been done here, what you are doing, and what you will yet do. I +believe the first is the King Edward’s Grammar School, with its various +branches, and prominent among them is that most admirable means of +training the wives of working men to be good wives and working wives, the +prime ornament of their homes, and the cause of happiness to others—I +mean those excellent girls’ schools in various parts of the town, which, +under the excellent superintendence of the principal, I should most +sincerely desire to see in every town in England. Next, I believe, is +the Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging to the body of +Independents, foremost among whose professors literature is proud to hail +Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest contributors to the +Edinburgh Review. The next is the Queen’s College, which, I may say, is +only a newly-born child; but, in the hands of such an admirable Doctor, +we may hope to see it arrive at a vigorous maturity. The next is the +School of Design, which, as has been well observed by my friend Sir +Charles Eastlake, is invaluable in such a place as this; and, lastly, +there is the Polytechnic Institution, with regard to which I had long ago +occasion to express my profound conviction that it was of unspeakable +importance to such a community as this, when I had the honour to be +present, under the auspices of your excellent representative, Mr. +Scholefield. This is the last of what has been done in an educational +way. They are all admirable in their kind; but I am glad to find that +more is yet doing. A few days ago I received a Birmingham newspaper, +containing a most interesting account of a preliminary meeting for the +formation of a Reformatory School for juvenile delinquents. You are not +exempt here from the honour of saving these poor, neglected, and wretched +outcasts. I read of one infant, six years old, who has been twice as +many times in the hands of the police as years have passed over his +devoted head. These are the eggs from which gaol-birds are hatched; if +you wish to check that dreadful brood, you must take the young and +innocent, and have them reared by Christian hands. + +Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme for a new +Literary and Scientific Institution, which would be worthy even of this +place, if there was nothing of the kind in it—an institution, as I +understand it, where the words “exclusion” and “exclusiveness” shall be +quite unknown—where all classes may assemble in common trust, respect, +and confidence—where there shall be a great gallery of painting and +statuary open to the inspection and admiration of all comers—where there +shall be a museum of models in which industry may observe its various +sources of manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, +and arrive at new results—where the very mines under the earth and under +the sea shall not be forgotten, but presented in little to the inquiring +eye—an institution, in short, where many and many of the obstacles which +now inevitably stand in the rugged way of the poor inventor shall be +smoothed away, and where, if he have anything in him, he will find +encouragement and hope. + +I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body of +gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside their individual +prepossessions on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to be +engaged in a design as patriotic as well can be. They have the intention +of meeting in a few days to advance this great object, and I call upon +you, in drinking this toast, to drink success to their endeavour, and to +make it the pledge by all good means to promote it. + +If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutions in +Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I intend to stop, merely +observing that I have seen within a short walk of this place one of the +most interesting and practical Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb that +has ever come under my observation. I have seen in the factories and +workshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and regularity, and such +great consideration for the workpeople provided, that they might justly +be entitled to be considered educational too. I have seen in your +splendid Town Hall, when the cheap concerts are going on there, also an +admirable educational institution. I have seen their results in the +demeanour of your working people, excellently balanced by a nice +instinct, as free from servility on the one hand, as from self-conceit on +the other. It is a perfect delight to have need to ask a question, if +only from the manner of the reply—a manner I never knew to pass unnoticed +by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a great marry +more I have not touched upon, and weaving all into one good fabric, +remember how much is included under the general head of the Educational +Institutions of your town. + + + + +XI. +LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853. + + +[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir Charles +Eastlake, proposed as a toast, “The Interests of Literature,” and +selected for the representatives of the world of letters, the Dean of St. +Paul’s and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean Milman having returned thanks.] + +MR DICKENS then addressed the President, who, it should be mentioned, +occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered with crimson +velvet, placed just before Stanfield’s picture of _The Victory_. + +Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and the +honour done him in associating his name with it, said that those +acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was unable to +recognize in this toast the President’s usual disinterestedness; since +English literature could scarcely be remembered in any place, and, +certainly, not in a school of art, without a very distinct remembrance of +his own tasteful writings, to say nothing of that other and better part +of himself, which, unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions. + +If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount Hardinge), he +(Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief thanks with one word +of reference to the noble picture painted by a very dear friend of his, +which was a little eclipsed that evening by the radiant and rubicund +chair which the President now so happily toned down, he would beg leave +to say that, as literature could nowhere be more appropriately honoured +than in that place, so he thought she could nowhere feel a higher +gratification in the ties that bound her to the sister arts. He ever +felt in that place that literature found, through their instrumentality, +always a new expression, and in a universal language. + + + + +XII. +LONDON, MAY 1, 1853. + + +[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the above +date, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed as a toast “Anglo-Saxon Literature,” +and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction as a means of +awakening attention to the condition of the oppressed and suffering +classes:—] + +“MR. DICKENS replied to this toast in a graceful and playful strain. In +the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast on the chancery +department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the Lord +Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not +distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without reference +to it. The amount of what he said was, that the Court had received a +great many more hard opinions than it merited; that they had been +parsimoniously obliged to perform a great amount of business by a very +inadequate number of judges; but that more recently the number of judges +had been increased to seven, and there was reason to hope that all +business brought before it would now be performed without unnecessary +delay. + +“Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence; said he was +exceedingly happy to hear it, as he trusted now that a suit, in which he +was greatly interested, would speedily come to an end. I heard a little +by-conversation between Mr. Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, who sat +opposite me, in which the latter seemed to be reiterating the same +assertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not extraordinarily +complicated might be got through with in three months. Mr. Dickens said +he was very happy to hear it; but I fancied there was a little shade of +incredulity in his manner; however, the incident showed one thing, that +is, that the chancery were not insensible to the representations of +Dickens; but the whole tone of the thing was quite good-natured and +agreeable.” {113} + + + + +XIII. +BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853. + + +[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens on +behalf of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, took place on Tuesday +evening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, where, +notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand +persons had assembled. The work selected was the _Christmas Carol_. The +high mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate +with remarkable force the various characters of the story, and with +admirable skill to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to +trusting and thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of +Scrooge’s nephew, to the hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe +the Ragshop-keeper’s parlour. The reading occupied more than three +hours, but so interested were the audience, that only one or two left the +Hall previously to its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts of +applause attested the successful discharge of the reader’s arduous task. +On Thursday evening Mr. Dickens read _The Cricket on the Hearth_. The +Hall was again well ruled, and the tale, though deficient in the dramatic +interest of the _Carol_, was listened to with attention, and rewarded +with repeated applause. On Friday evening, the _Christmas Carol_ was +read a second time to a large assemblage of work-people, for whom, at Mr. +Dickens’s special request, the major part of the vast edifice was +reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. Dickens delivered the +following brief address, almost every sentence of which was received with +loudly expressed applause.] + +MY GOOD FRIENDS,—When I first imparted to the committee of the projected +Institute my particular wish that on one of the evenings of my readings +here the main body of my audience should be composed of working men and +their families, I was animated by two desires; first, by the wish to have +the great pleasure of meeting you face to face at this Christmas time, +and accompany you myself through one of my little Christmas books; and +second, by the wish to have an opportunity of stating publicly in your +presence, and in the presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the +Institute will, from the beginning, recognise one great principle—strong +in reason and justice—which I believe to be essential to the very life of +such an Institution. It is, that the working man shall, from the first +unto the last, have a share in the management of an Institution which is +designed for his benefit, and which calls itself by his name. + +I have no fear here of being misunderstood—of being supposed to mean too +much in this. If there ever was a time when any one class could of +itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of society—which I +greatly doubt—that time is unquestionably past. It is in the fusion of +different classes, without confusion; in the bringing together of +employers and employed; in the creating of a better common understanding +among those whose interests are identical, who depend upon each other, +who are vitally essential to each other, and who never can be in +unnatural antagonism without deplorable results, that one of the chief +principles of a Mechanics’ Institution should consist. In this world a +great deal of the bitterness among us arises from an imperfect +understanding of one another. Erect in Birmingham a great Educational +Institution, properly educational; educational of the feelings as well as +of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham men contribute; in which +all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein all orders of Birmingham men +are faithfully represented—and you will erect a Temple of Concord here +which will be a model edifice to the whole of England. + +Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans’ Committee, which not +long ago considered the establishment of the Institute so sensibly, and +supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat the gentlemen—earnest I +know in the good work, and who are now among us,—by all means to avoid +the great shortcoming of similar institutions; and in asking the working +man for his confidence, to set him the great example and give him theirs +in return. You will judge for yourselves if I promise too much for the +working man, when I say that he will stand by such an enterprise with the +utmost of his patience, his perseverance, sense, and support; that I am +sure he will need no charitable aid or condescending patronage; but will +readily and cheerfully pay for the advantages which it confers; that he +will prepare himself in individual cases where he feels that the adverse +circumstances around him have rendered it necessary; in a word, that he +will feel his responsibility like an honest man, and will most honestly +and manfully discharge it. I now proceed to the pleasant task to which I +assure you I have looked forward for a long time. + + * * * * * + +At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, and +“three cheers, with three times three.” As soon as the enthusiasm of the +audience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens said:— + +You have heard so much of my voice since we met to-night, that I will +only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your regard, that I +am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any little service I have +rendered to you I have freely rendered from my heart; that I hope to +become an honorary member of your great Institution, and will meet you +often there when it becomes practically useful; that I thank you most +affectionately for this new mark of your sympathy and approval; and that +I wish you many happy returns of this great birthday-time, and many +prosperous years. + + + + +XIV. +COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. +LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854. + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary Dinner +in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial Travellers’ Schools, +held at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickens presided on +this occasion, and proposed the toasts.] + +I THINK it may be assumed that most of us here present know something +about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or foreign countries, +although I dare say some of us have had experience in that way, but at +home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of us +have had experience of the extinct “fast coaches,” the “Wonders,” +“Taglionis,” and “Tallyhos,” of other days. I daresay most of us +remember certain modest postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, +through slush and mud, to little country towns with no visible +population, except half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women +with umbrellas and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under +the gables, to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I +dare say, if so minded, about our recollections of the “Talbot,” the +“Queen’s Head,” or the “Lion” of those days. We have all been to that +room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not quite free +from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the +sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the box-coats that hung +from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid us at every turn, like so +many human man-traps; where county members, framed and glazed, were +eternally presenting that petition which, somehow or other, had made +their glory in the county, although nothing else had ever come of it. +Where the books in the windows always wanted the first, last, and middle +leaves, and where the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in +the night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarly singular period of +the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts +of our favourite hotel, wherever it was—its beds, its stables, its vast +amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital +dishes, its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal +our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal +regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic once +writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her +the character of being an “eminently gatherable-to-one’s-arms sort of +person.” Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat similar +tribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided at our +hotels. + +With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no doubt, +equally familiar. We know all about that station to which we must take +our ticket, although we never get there; and the other one at which we +arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile from the town, where +the old road is sure to have been abolished, and the new road is going to +be made—where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and the new +one is not half built up. We know all about that party on the platform +who, with the best intentions, can do nothing for our luggage except +pitch it into all sorts of unattainable places. We know all about that +short omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger +of the crown of one’s hat; and about that fly, whose leading peculiarity +is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, how +instantaneously the lights of the station disappear when the train +starts, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which will be an +excellent house when the customers come, but which at present has nothing +to offer but a liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime. + +I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object of +increasing your interest in the purpose of this night’s assemblage. +Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the +more from his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson +unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. He may have his +experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; but home is the +best, after all, and its pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly +prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, every one must be prepared to +learn that commercial travellers, as a body, know how to prize those +domestic relations from which their pursuits so frequently sever them; +for no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing +testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in founding and +maintaining a school for the children of deceased or unfortunate members +of their own body; those children who now appeal to you in mute but +eloquent terms from the gallery. + +It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly +objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its solid +and practical results, that we are here to-night. It is to roof that +building which is to shelter the children of your deceased friends with +one crowning ornament, the best that any building can have, namely, a +receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your +active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your own good work. +You know how to put your hands to the plough in earnest as well as any +men in existence, for this little book informs me that you raised last +year no less a sum than £8000, and while fully half of that sum consisted +of new donations to the building fund, I find that the regular revenue of +the charity has only suffered to the extent of £30. After this, I most +earnestly and sincerely say that were we all authors together, I might +boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same unity and +steadfastness I find in yours. + +I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the +vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of +brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are united in a +common pursuit. You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that +I will not presume to lay them before you in any further detail. Suffice +it to say that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by +halves. I do not think you could do so if you tried, and I have a moral +certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are +not members of the travellers’ body, I will say in the words of the +French proverb, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” The Commercial +Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the +visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring +that aid in their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from +them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, “Success to +the Commercial Travellers’ School.” + + * * * * * + +In proposing the health of the Army in the Crimea, Mr. Dickens said:— + +IT does not require any extraordinary sagacity in a commercial assembly +to appreciate the dire evils of war. The great interests of trade +enfeebled by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all the +peaceful arts bent down before it, too palpably indicate its character +and results, so that far less practical intelligence than that by which I +am surrounded would be sufficient to appreciate the horrors of war. But +there are seasons when the evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, +are immeasurably greater, and when a powerful nation, by admitting the +right of any autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds of +its own ruin, and overshadows itself in time to come with that fatal +influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to exercise over +their weaker neighbours. + +Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its root in +English ground from which the yard wand can be made that will measure—the +mine has not its place in English soil that will supply the material of a +pair of scales to weigh the influence that may be at stake in the war in +which we are now straining all our energies. That war is, at any time +and in any shape, a most dreadful and deplorable calamity, we need no +proverb to tell us; but it is just because it is such a calamity, and +because that calamity must not for ever be impending over us at the fancy +of one man against all mankind, that we must not allow that man to darken +from our view the figures of peace and justice between whom and us he now +interposes. + +Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true spirits of +two countries were really fighting in the cause of human advancement and +freedom—no matter what diplomatic notes or other nameless botherations, +from number one to one hundred thousand and one, may have preceded their +taking the field—if ever there were a time when noble hearts were +deserving well of mankind by exposing themselves to the obedient bayonets +of a rash and barbarian tyrant, it is now, when the faithful children of +England and France are fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those faithful +children are the admiration and wonder of the world, so gallantly are +they discharging their duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly, +emphatically representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink the +health of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all possible +honours. + + * * * * * + +In proposing the health of the Treasurer, Mr. Dickens said:— + +If the President of this Institution had been here, I should possibly +have made one of the best speeches you ever heard; but as he is not here, +I shall turn to the next toast on my list:—“The health of your worthy +Treasurer, Mr. George Moore,” a name which is a synonym for integrity, +enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence. He is one of the most +zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears to me to have been +doing nothing during the last week but rushing into and out of +railway-carriages, and making eloquent speeches at all sorts of public +dinners in favour of this charity. Last evening he was at Manchester, +and this evening he comes here, sacrificing his time and convenience, and +exhausting in the meantime the contents of two vast leaden inkstands and +no end of pens, with the energy of fifty bankers’ clerks rolled into one. +But I clearly foresee that the Treasurer will have so much to do +to-night, such gratifying sums to acknowledge and such large lines of +figures to write in his books, that I feel the greatest consideration I +can show him is to propose his health without further observation, +leaving him to address you in his own behalf. I propose to you, +therefore, the health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer of this charity, +and I need hardly add that it is one which is to be drunk with all the +honours. + + * * * * * + +[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens rose and said:—] + +So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both in fact and +in fiction, that I have heard recently of a proposal for the +establishment of a Company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to take it down. +Only one of those travellers, however, has been enabled to bring Mont +Blanc to Piccadilly, and, by his own ability and good humour, so to thaw +its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid lady may ascend it twice +a-day, “during the holidays,” without the smallest danger or fatigue. +Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us to-night, is undoubtedly “a +traveller.” I do not know whether he takes many orders, but this I can +testify, on behalf of the children of his friends, that he gives them in +the most liberal manner. + +We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also a +traveller, not only in right of his able edition of Goldsmith’s +“Traveller,” but in right of his admirable Handbook, which proves him to +be a traveller in the right spirit through all the labyrinths of London. +We have also amongst us my friend Horace Mayhew, very well known also for +his books, but especially for his genuine admiration of the company at +that end of the room [_Mr. Dickens here pointed to the ladies gallery_], +and who, whenever the fair sex is mentioned, will be found to have the +liveliest personal interest in the conversation. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health of these +three distinguished visitors. They are all admirable speakers, but Mr. +Albert Smith has confessed to me, that on fairly balancing his own merits +as a speaker and a singer, he rather thinks he excels in the latter art. +I have, therefore, yielded to his estimate of himself, and I have now the +pleasure of informing you that he will lead off the speeches of the other +two gentlemen with a song. Mr. Albert Smith has just said to me in an +earnest tone of voice, “What song would you recommend?” and I replied, +“Galignani’s Messenger.” Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore beg to +propose the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and Horace +Mayhew, and call on the first-named gentleman for a song. + + + + +XV. +ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. + + + THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1855. + +I CANNOT, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception +accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to compress what +I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. It is more +than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who +“thought they should be heard for their much speaking.” As they have +propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe that they +flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my +best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble +lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about +a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated +in this place what the whole country knows perfectly well to be true, and +what no man in it can by possibility better know to be true than those +disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of +hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became +premier—I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, at a time when +this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress—I say, that noble +lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this age, who has, by his +earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and +it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come between +the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to the +private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. Now, I have some slight +acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, and I will accept that +figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to form a +company of Her Majesty’s servants, I think I should know where to put my +hand on “the comic old gentleman;” nor, that if I wanted to get up a +pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to go to for the +tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable host of +supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that contention with which +many of us are familiar, both on these and on other boards, in which the +principal objects thrown about are loaves and fishes. But I will try to +give the noble lord the reason for these private theatricals, and the +reason why, however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon +them, there is not the faintest present hope of their coming to a +conclusion. It is this:—The public theatricals which the noble lord is +so condescending as to manage are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so +cumbrous, the parts so ill-distributed, the company so full of “walking +gentlemen,” the managers have such large families, and are so bent upon +putting those families into what is theatrically called “first +business”—not because of their aptitude for it, but because they _are_ +their families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. +We have seen the _Comedy of Errors_ played so dismally like a tragedy +that we really cannot bear it. We are, therefore, making bold to get up +the _School of Reform_, and we hope, before the play is out, to improve +that noble lord by our performance very considerably. If he object that +we have no right to improve him without his license, we venture to claim +that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful +piper, whom we always pay. + +Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as +my trade and calling is not associated with politics, perhaps it may be +useful for me to show how I came to be here, because reasons similar to +those which have influenced me may still be trembling in the balance in +the minds of others. I want at all times, in full sincerity, to do my +duty by my countrymen. If _I_ feel an attachment towards them, there is +nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too +affectionately remember the confidence and friendship that they have long +reposed in me. My sphere of action—which I shall never change—I shall +never overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do +to-night. By literature I have lived, and through literature I have been +content to serve my country; and I am perfectly well aware that I cannot +serve two masters. In my sphere of action I have tried to understand the +heavier social grievances, and to help to set them right. When the +_Times_ newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to +the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplaced men and +misdirected things, which had made England unable to find on the face of +the earth, an enemy one-twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and +ruin of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the +gloomy silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect +in which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With shame +and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new +element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and +crime, which is always below us—with little adequate expression of the +general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, in +Parliament—with the machinery of Government and the legislature going +round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if +they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, when it +had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them—I did and +do believe that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could +possibly take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking of the +people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty to effect +a great peaceful constitutional change in the administration of their own +affairs. At such a crisis this association arose; at such a crisis I +joined it: considering its further case to be—if further case could +possibly be needed—that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s +business, that men must be gregarious in good citizenship as well as in +other things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a centre +of attraction for particles to fly to, before any serviceable body with +recognised functions can come into existence. This association has +arisen, and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have +heard in the main but three, which I will now briefly notice. It is said +that it is proposed by this association to exercise an influence, through +the constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not the least +hesitation in saying that I have the smallest amount of faith in the +House of Commons at present existing and that I consider the exercise of +such influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this +country. I was reading no later than yesterday the book of Mr. Pepys, +which is rather a favourite of mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, +writing of the House of Commons, says: + + “My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest + grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust of + being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can + see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design.” + +Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many years +after a Reform Bill, the house of Commons is so little changed, I will +not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that bills which +cramp and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so +easily passed, and how it happens that measures for their real interests +are so very difficult to be got through Parliament. I will not analyse +the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases its +deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable Member who was once +a candidate for the honour of your—and my—independent vote and interest. +I will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments, +standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask +how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes +and definitions of Shakespeare’s Touchstone—the retort courteous—the quip +modest—the reply churlish—the reproof valiant—the countercheck +quarrelsome—the lie circumstantial and the lie direct—are of immeasurably +greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, +and the education, of a whole people. I will not penetrate into the +mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard of Party keeps +his strangled public questions, and with regard to which, when he gives +the key to his wife, the new comer, he strictly charges her on no account +to open the door. I will merely put it to the experience of everybody +here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of +hearing, a little dim of sight, a little slow of understanding, and +whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiency invalided state to require +close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and +whether it is not capable of considerable improvement? I believe that, +in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, +the people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have +its memory jogged; and be kept awake when it happens to have taken too +much Ministerial narcotic; it must be trotted about, and must be bustled +and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. I hold +that no power can deprive us of the right to administer our functions as +a body comprising electors from all parts of the country, associated +together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, +unmeaning routine, or worn-out conventionalities. + +This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this +Association sets class against class. Is this so? (_Cries of_ “No.”) +No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I +wish to avoid placing in opposition those two words—Aristocracy and +People. I am one who can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and +would not on any account deprive either of a single just right belonging +to it. I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the governors and +the governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between +them, in which are lying, newly-buried, thousands on thousands of the +bravest and most devoted men that even England ever bred. It is to +prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, +that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary +consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so +strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge +over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported +by common sense. Setting class against class! That is the very parrot +prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following +example:—A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great +number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked them to +give his children bread, gave them stones; who, when they were told to +give those children fish, gave them serpents. When they were ordered to +send to the East, they sent to the West; when they ought to have been +serving dinner in the North, they were consulting exploded cookery books +in the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when +required to do anything, and were bringing everything to ruin. At last +the respectable gentleman calls his house steward, and says, even then +more in sorrow than in anger, “This is a terrible business; no fortune +can stand it—no mortal equanimity can bear it! I must change my system; +I must obtain servants who will do their duty.” The house steward throws +up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates “Good God, master, you are +setting class against class!” and then rushes off into the servants’ +hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wicked feeling. + +I now come to the third objection, which is common among young gentlemen +who are not particularly fit for anything but spending money which they +have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, “How very +extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can’t mind +their own business.” I think it will occur to all that a very sufficient +mode of disposing of this objection is to say, that it is our own +business we mind when we come forward in this way, and it is to prevent +it from being mismanaged by them. I observe from the Parliamentary +debates—which have of late, by-the-bye, frequently suggested to me that +there is this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh, +that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the scarlet, in +the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull—I have observed from +the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been a +great deal of the reproof valiant and the counter-check quarrelsome, in +reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, +by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should +have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know +to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I +consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not +already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for +Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. +There is, however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has +so pointed a moral at the end of it that I will substitute it for a new +case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St. +Stephen’s. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks +was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, +much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the +course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was +born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor’s Assistant, and well versed in +figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, +book-keepers, and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine +inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the +constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on +certain splints of elm wood called “tallies.” In the reign of George +III. an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, +and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate +adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a +change ought not to be effected. + +All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this +bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks +abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable +accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done +with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say +there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, +on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it +would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be +easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the +miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had +been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and +so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially +burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of +Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to +the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of +Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to +ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the +second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over +the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn’t got home +to-night. + +Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all obstinate +adherence to rubbish which the time has long outlived, is certain to have +in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; and +that will some day set fire to something or other; which, if given boldly +to the winds would have been harmless; but which, obstinately retained, +is ruinous. I believe myself that when Administrative Reform goes up it +will be idle to hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance. +The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind +our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private +wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public +folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, +and stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the country for +merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic or +democratic, only asking whether it be honest or true, is, I take it, the +true object of this Association. This object it seeks to promote by +uniting together large numbers of the people, I hope, of all conditions, +to the end that they may better comprehend, bear in mind, understand +themselves, and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of +which there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the +skirmishers thrown out from time to time by the Party of Generals, they +may see that their feints and manœuvres do not oppress the small +defaulters and release the great, and that they do not gull the public +with a mere field-day Review of Reform, instead of an earnest, +hard-fought Battle. I have had no consultation with any one upon the +subject, but I particularly wish that the directors may devise some means +of enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms +than subscribers who have larger resources. I could wish to see great +numbers of them belong to us, because I sincerely believe that it would +be good for the common weal. + +Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard asked +him for a day for his motion, “Let the hon. gentleman find a day for +himself.” + + “Now, in the names of all the gods at once, + Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed + That he is grown so great?” + +If our Cæsar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing that +cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, “First Lord, your duty it is +to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. See you, who take +the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue +for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you can get +it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old +country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its +swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the +day when the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head +of the Government failed in his duty in not anticipating it by a brighter +and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord; make a day; work for a +day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in return may +then—not otherwise—find a day for you; a day equally associated with the +contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted English people, and +with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her fair line of children.” + + + + +XVI. +SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855. + + +[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol in the +Mechanics’ Hall in behalf of the funds of the Institute. + +After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few gentlemen +in Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens for his acceptance a very handsome +service of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a pair of fish carvers, +as some substantial manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens for +his kindness in coming to Sheffield. Henceforth the Christmas of 1855 +would be associated in his mind with the name of that gentleman.] + +MR. CHARLES DICKENS, in receiving the presentation, said, he accepted +with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of +Sheffield-workmanship; and he begged to assure them that the kind +observations which had been made by the Mayor, and the way in which they +had been responded to by that assembly, would never be obliterated from +his remembrance. The present testified not only to the work of Sheffield +hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. It was his +earnest desire to do right by his readers, and to leave imaginative and +popular literature associated with the private homes and public rights of +the people of England. The case of cutlery with which he had been so +kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he +assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the +principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his +reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, and many +happy new years. + + + + +XVII. +LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858. + + +[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on +Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one hundred and fifty gentlemen +sat down to dinner, in the Freemasons’ Hall. Later in the evening all +the seats in the gallery were filled with ladies interested in the +success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other toasts, the +Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed “Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick +Children,” and said:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It is one of my rules in life not to believe a man +who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in children. I hold +myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because I know, +as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen its affections +and sympathies against those dear little people must be wanting in so +many humanising experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to be quite +an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the assertion down, +whenever I happen to meet with it—which is sometimes, though not often—as +an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel languor of the hour, +and meaning about as much as that knowing social lassitude, which has +used up the cardinal virtues and quite found out things in general, +usually does mean. I suppose it may be taken for granted that we, who +come together in the name of children and for the sake of children, +acknowledge that we have an interest in them; indeed, I have observed +since I sit down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether, +representing an infant institution, and not even yet a grown-up company. +A few years are necessary to the increase of our strength and the +expansion of our figure; and then these tables, which now have a few +tucks in them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now sits so +easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us. Nevertheless, it is +likely that even we are not without our experience now and then of spoilt +children. I do not mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody’s own +children ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our +particular friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down +after dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert +to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the +distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is to assist at +those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated with +imitations and descriptive dialogue which might not be inaptly called, +after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome ascent of +Miss Mary and the eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what +it is when those children won’t go to bed; we know how they prop their +eyelids open with their forefingers when they will sit up; how, when they +become fractious, they say aloud that they don’t like us, and our nose is +too long, and why don’t we go? And we are perfectly acquainted with +those kicking bundles which are carried off at last protesting. An +eminent eye-witness told me that he was one of a company of learned +pundits who assembled at the house of a very distinguished philosopher of +the last generation to hear him expound his stringent views concerning +infant education and early mental development, and he told me that while +the philosopher did this in very beautiful and lucid language, the +philosopher’s little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by +dabbling up to the elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for +their entertainment, having previously anointed his hair with the syrup, +combed it with his fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable +that we also have our similar experiences sometimes, of principles that +are not quite practice, and that we know people claiming to be very wise +and profound about nations of men who show themselves to be rather weak +and shallow about units of babies. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to present to +you after this dinner of to-day are not of this class. I have glanced at +these for the easier and lighter introduction of another, a very +different, a far more numerous, and a far more serious class. The spoilt +children whom I must show you are the spoilt children of the poor in this +great city, the children who are, every year, for ever and ever +irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of ours by tens of +thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you, assisting and +not contravening the ways of Providence, will help to save them. The two +grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children before you, +preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their +little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Of the annual +deaths in this great town, their unnatural deaths form more than +one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to the other +class—I shall not ask you on behalf of these children to observe how good +they are, how pretty they are, how clever they are, how promising they +are, whose beauty they most resemble—I shall only ask you to observe how +weak they are, and how like death they are! And I shall ask you, by the +remembrance of everything that lies between your own infancy and that so +miscalled second childhood when the child’s graces are gone and nothing +but its helplessness remains; I shall ask you to turn your thoughts to +_these_ spoilt children in the sacred names of Pity and Compassion. + +Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane +members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some of +the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In the closes +and wynds of that picturesque place—I am sorry to remind you what fast +friends picturesqueness and typhus often are—we saw more poverty and +sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a life. Our way +lay from one to another of the most wretched dwellings, reeking with +horrible odours; shut out from the sky, shut out from the air, mere pits +and dens. In a room in one of these places, where there was an empty +porridge-pot on the cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged +children crouching on the bare ground near it—where, I remember as I +speak, that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained and +time-stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the fever which had +shaken everything else there had shaken even it—there lay, in an old +egg-box which the mother had begged from a shop, a little feeble, wasted, +wan, sick child. With his little wasted face, and his little hot, worn +hands folded over his breast, and his little bright, attentive eyes, I +can see him now, as I have seen him for several years, look in steadily +at us. There he lay in his little frail box, which was not at all a bad +emblem of the little body from which he was slowly parting—there he lay, +quite quiet, quite patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the +mother said; he seldom complained; “he lay there, seemin’ to woonder what +it was a’ aboot.” God knows, I thought, as I stood looking at him, he +had his reasons for wondering—reasons for wondering how it could possibly +come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when +he ought to have been as bright and as brisk as the birds that never got +near him—reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a little +decrepid old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, as if there +were no crowds of healthy and happy children playing on the grass under +the summer’s sun within a stone’s throw of him, as if there were no +bright, moving sea on the other side of the great hill overhanging the +city; as if there were no great clouds rushing over it; as if there were +no life, and movement, and vigour anywhere in the world—nothing but +stoppage and decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence, +more pathetically than I have ever heard anything said by any orator in +my life, “Will you please to tell me what this means, strange man? and if +you can give me any good reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced +on my way to Him who said that children were to come into His presence +and were not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that they +should come by this hard road by which I am travelling; pray give that +reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly and wonder about it very +much;” and to my mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many a +poor child, sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this +London; many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately and kindly +tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward +circumstances, wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such +times I have seen my poor little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he +has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always found him +wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious God, such +things should be! + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not be, if +this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great +compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and +prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this +place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where once, no doubt, +blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and +married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the +old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old +oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old +state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now +converted are such little patients that the attendant nurses look like +reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable +Christian ogre. Grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the +rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having +been ill. On the doll’s beds are such diminutive creatures that each +poor sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round, you +may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled over half the +brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has +mowed down (as I saw myself) the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the +walls of these rooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. +At the bed’s heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal +embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figure of Him who was once a +child himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on the +beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out-patients +brought to that house for relief is no fewer than ten thousand in the +compass of one single year. In the room in which these are received, you +may see against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it has been +calculated, that if every grateful mother who brings a child there will +drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a +year by so large a sum as forty pounds. And you may read in the Hospital +Report, with a glow of pleasure, that these poor women are so respondent +as to have made, even in a toiling year of difficulty and high prices, +this estimated forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same +Hospital, you may read with what a generous earnestness the highest and +wisest members of the medical profession testify to the great need of it; +to the immense difficulty of treating children in the same hospitals with +grown-up people, by reason of their different ailments and requirements, +to the vast amount of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will +be saved, through this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but +among the prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of +children’s illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic +mode of studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst +of all—(for I must present no rose-coloured picture of this place to +you—I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s +Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce +obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow +and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably +diminutive, compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be +maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to +saying better known, because I will not believe that in a Christian +community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, +being better known, to be well and richly endowed. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment—which I +resolved when I got up not to allow myself—this is the simple case. This +is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf of +the thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but also +on behalf of the thousands of children who live half developed, racked +with preventible pain, shorn of their natural capacity for health and +enjoyment. If these innocent creatures cannot move you for themselves, +how can I possibly hope to move you in their name? The most delightful +paper, the most charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles +Lamb conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter +night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in their +society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, bachelor self, and +finds that they were but dream-children who might have been, but never +were. “We are nothing,” they say to him; “less than nothing, and dreams. +We are only what might have been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore +of Lethe, millions of ages, before we have existence and a name.” “And +immediately awaking,” he says, “I found myself in my arm chair.” The +dream-children whom I would now raise, if I could, before every one of +you, according to your various circumstances, should be the dear child +you love, the dearer child you have lost, the child you might have had, +the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream-children should +hold in its powerful hand one of the little children now lying in the +Child’s Hospital, or now shut out of it to perish. Each of these +dream-children should say to you, “O, help this little suppliant in my +name; O, help it for my sake!” Well!—And immediately awaking, you should +find yourselves in the Freemasons’ Hall, happily arrived at the end of a +rather long speech, drinking “Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick +Children,” and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish. + + + + +XVIII. +EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858. + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol in +the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the Philosophical +Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of +Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickens +acknowledged the tribute as follows:] + +MY LORD PROVOST, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am deeply +sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and great surprise; +and that I thank you cordially with all my heart. I never have +forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour to be a burgess +and guild-brother of the Corporation of Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or +seventeen years ago, the first great public recognition and encouragement +I ever received was bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent +city—in this city so distinguished in literature and so distinguished in +the arts. You will readily believe that I have carried into the various +countries I have since traversed, and through all my subsequent career, +the proud and affectionate remembrance of that eventful epoch in my life; +and that coming back to Edinburgh is to me like coming home. + +Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice to-night, that I +will not inflict on you the additional task of hearing any more. I am +better reconciled to limiting myself to these very few words, because I +know and feel full well that no amount of speech to which I could give +utterance could possibly express my sense of the honour and distinction +you have conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification I derive from +this reception. + + + + +XIX. +LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858. + + +[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund, +held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, at which Thackeray presided, Mr. Dickens +made the following speech:] + +IN our theatrical experience as playgoers we are all equally accustomed +to predict by certain little signs and portents on the stage what is +going to happen there. When the young lady, an admiral’s daughter, is +left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smart +spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath her feet, +we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen enter, for +whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are in waiting, we +augur a conversation, and that it will assume a retrospective +biographical character. When any of the performers who belong to the +sea-faring or marauding professions are observed to arm themselves with +very small swords to which are attached very large hilts, we predict that +the affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the association of ideas, +it may have occurred to some that when I asked my old friend in the chair +to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and I have him now on +my lips. + +The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office which I hold, +are not so frequent or so great as its privileges. He is in fact a mere +walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that he has no one to +love. If this advantage could be added to his character it would be one +of a more agreeable nature than it is, and his forlorn position would be +greatly improved. His duty is to call every half year at the bankers’, +when he signs his name in a large greasy inconvenient book, to certain +documents of which he knows nothing, and then he delivers it to the +property man and exits anywhere. + +He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges to watch +the steady growth of an institution in which he takes great interest; it +is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the prudence, the +goodness, the self-denial, and the excellence of a class of persons who +have been too long depreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied, +out of the depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And lastly, it +is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose the health +of the chairman at the annual dinners of the institution, when that +chairman is one for whose genius he entertains the warmest admiration, +and whom he respects as a friend, and as one who does honour to +literature, and in whom literature is honoured. I say when that is the +case, he feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. From +the earliest days of this institution I have ventured to impress on its +managers, that they would consult its credit and success by choosing its +chairmen as often as possible within the circle of literature and the +arts; and I will venture to say that no similar institution has been +presided over by so many remarkable and distinguished men. I am sure, +however, that it never has had, and that it never will have, simply +because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by the +presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night. + +It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on myself to +flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. Thackeray’s books, and +to tell you to observe how full they are of wit and wisdom, how +out-speaking, and how devoid of fear or favour; but I will take leave to +remark, in paying my due homage and respect to them, that it is fitting +that such a writer and such an institution should be brought together. +Every writer of fiction, although he may not adopt the dramatic form, +writes in effect for the stage. He may never write plays; but the truth +and passion which are in him must be more or less reflected in the great +mirror which he holds up to nature. Actors, managers, and authors are +all represented in this company, and it maybe supposed that they all have +studied the deep wants of the human heart in many theatres; but none of +them could have studied its mysterious workings in any theatre to greater +advantage than in the bright and airy pages of _Vanity Fair_. To this +skilful showman, who has so often delighted us, and who has charmed us +again to-night, we have now to wish God speed, and that he may continue +for many years {150} to exercise his potent art. To him fill a bumper +toast, and fervently utter, God bless him! + + + + +XX. +LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858. + + +[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week of +1853, and on several subsequent occasions, Mr. Dickens had read the +_Christmas Carol_ and the _Chimes_ before public audiences, but always in +aid of the funds of some institution, or for other benevolent purposes. +The first reading he ever gave for his own benefit took place on the +above date, in St. Martin’s Hall, (now converted into the Queen’s +Theatre). This reading Mr. Dickens prefaced with the following speech:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It may perhaps be in known to you that, for a few +years past, I have been accustomed occasionally to read some of my +shorter books, to various audiences, in aid of a variety of good objects, +and at some charge to myself, both in time and money. It having at +length become impossible in any reason to comply with these always +accumulating demands, I have had definitively to choose between now and +then reading on my own account, as one of my recognised occupations, or +not reading at all. I have had little or no difficulty in deciding on +the former course. The reasons that have led me to it—besides the +consideration that it necessitates no departure whatever from the chosen +pursuits of my life—are threefold: firstly, I have satisfied myself that +it can involve no possible compromise of the credit and independence of +literature; secondly, I have long held the opinion, and have long acted +on the opinion, that in these times whatever brings a public man and his +public face to face, on terms of mutual confidence and respect, is a good +thing; thirdly, I have had a pretty large experience of the interest my +hearers are so generous as to take in these occasions, and of the delight +they give to me, as a tried means of strengthening those relations—I may +almost say of personal friendship—which it is my great privilege and +pride, as it is my great responsibility, to hold with a multitude of +persons who will never hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is that I +come, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time; and thus it is +that I proceed to read this little book, quite as composedly as I might +proceed to write it, or to publish it in any other way. + + + + +XXI. +LONDON, MAY 1, 1858. + + +[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal Academy, +after the health of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray had been proposed by +the President, Sir Charles Eastlake:—] + +FOLLOWING the order of your toast, I have to take the first part in the +duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to +literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much an interchange +of compliments, as it were, between near relations, to enter into any +lengthened expression of our thanks for the honour you have done us. I +feel that it would be changing this splendid assembly into a sort of +family party. I may, however, take leave to say that your sister, whom I +represent, is strong and healthy; that she has a very great affection +for, and an undying interest in you, and that it is always a very great +gratification to her to see herself so well remembered within these +walls, and to know that she is an honoured guest at your hospitable +board. + + + + +XXII. +LONDON, JULY 21, 1858. + + +[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess’s Theatre, +for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic College. +Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered the +following speech:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I think I may venture to congratulate you +beforehand on the pleasant circumstance that the movers and seconders of +the resolutions which will be submitted to you will, probably, have very +little to say. Through the Report which you have heard read, and through +the comprehensive address of the chairman, the cause which brings us +together has been so very clearly stated to you, that it can stand in +need of very little, if of any further exposition. But, as I have the +honour to move the first resolution which this handsome gift, and the +vigorous action that must be taken upon it, necessitate, I think I shall +only give expression to what is uppermost in the general mind here, if I +venture to remark that, many as the parts are in which Mr. Kean has +distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared in one in +which the large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, and the grace +of a gentleman, have been more admirably blended than in this day’s +faithful adherence to the calling of which he is a prosperous ornament, +and in this day’s manly advocacy of its cause. + +Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is: + +“That the Report of the provisional committee be adopted, and that this +meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully acknowledges, the gift of five +acres of land referred to in the said Report.” {153} + +It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this acceptance +and acknowledgment, and that we all know very well that this generous +gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of every lover of the +dramatic art. As it is far too often forgotten by those who are indebted +to it for many a restorative flight out of this working-day world, that +the silks, and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professors must be +every night exchanged for the hideous coats and waistcoats of the present +day, in which we have now the honour and the misfortune of appearing +before you, so when we do meet with a nature so considerably generous as +this donor’s, and do find an interest in the real life and struggles of +the people who have delighted it, so very spontaneous and so very +liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and to admire, we have no +duty left but to “take the goods the gods provide us,” and to make the +best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to remark, +that in this mode of turning a good gift to the highest account, lies the +truest gratitude. + +In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was +speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, the spot upon which we +are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty and a +cruel bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice +will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where I now stand +dryshod, and that “the quality of mercy” will be beautifully stated to +the Venetian Council by a learned young doctor from Padua, on these very +boards on which we now enlarge upon the quality of charity and sympathy. +Knowing this, it came into my mind to consider how different the real +bond of to-day from the ideal bond of to-night. Now, all generosity, all +forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousies and unworthy +divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, all +selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all evil,—now +all good. Then, a bond to be broken within the compass of a few—three or +four—swiftly passing hours,—now, a bond to be valid and of good effect +generations hence. + +Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this bond, between +this generous gentleman on the one hand, and the united members of a too +often and too long disunited art upon the other, be you the witnesses. +Do you attest of everything that is liberal and free in spirit, that is +“so nominated in the bond;” and of everything that is grudging, +self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by no sophistry ever to be +found there. I beg to move the resolution which I have already had the +pleasure of reading. + + + + +XXIII. +MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858. + + +[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the +Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the +Free-trade Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr. Dickens +presided.] + +IT has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season +produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner +do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price +begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and +west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking +up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on +this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest +and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed +the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of +orations, each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little +or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed +to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it +was delivered. + +The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope +that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and +deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, +and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and +straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to +throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique +biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall. + +At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the words, +“Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire.” Will you allow +me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before +you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put +myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my +studies. To begin with: the title did not suggest to me anything in the +least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with +the terms, “Mechanics’ Institutions,” and “Literary Societies,” but they +have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body +of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which +generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, which is seldom +paid for, and which takes the name of the mechanics most grievously in +vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place +together. + +I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this +title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, “Here’s the old story.” But +the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand +that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this +association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to +prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this +Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one +hundred and fourteen local Mechanics’ Institutions and Mutual Improvement +Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; +suggesting to all how they can best communicate with and profit by the +fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before +them; advising them how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct +end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and +sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of +excellent books, called “Free Itinerating Libraries.” I learned that +these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds +of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by +thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never +damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These and other like facts lead me +to consider the immense importance of the fact, that no little cluster of +working men’s cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at +the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for +water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for +it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of +speech even before it has come into existence. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has +brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do +for those working men what this local association does. No central +association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local +association does. No central association at a distance could possibly +put them in that familiar and easy communication one with another, as +that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley seven miles off, +should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley +twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you +may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I +impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a +most important feature, of this society. + +On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest men, +however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and +maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that +combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in time a vital +consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to +the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to +diffuse the results of experience and of reflection. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history +of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so +far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at +certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising members of +the local society to submit themselves to voluntary examination in +various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the +charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to +come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which +it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the +list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of +recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving +them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. + +I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which have +comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal +coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language—in +fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I +felt most devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that they had not been +submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, +I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself to-night. And yet +it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these +examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a +continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence, has been a constant +wrestle with + + “Those twin gaolers of the daring heart— + Low birth and iron fortune.” {161} + +I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these +questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of +whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, the business of +whose life is with tools and with machinery. + +Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from +among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers +who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous +examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from +morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked +eight miles a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which +they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, +who begin life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a-week, and +the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he +worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which +this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear +before you to-night, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There +is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third-class +certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year +again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a +wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing +until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a +great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very +humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles +a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which he has won +so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he +was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o’clock +in the morning to learn drawing. “The thought of my lads,” he writes in +his modest account of himself, “in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave +me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any +personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to +understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, +England, pre-eminent in the world’s history.” There is a piecer at +mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little +more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is +arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, +who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a +subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an +astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and +is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing-classes in that +same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that +working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of to-night. Well +may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of +his trade, by the American poet: + + “Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, + Onward through life he goes; + Each morning sees some task begun, + Each evening sees its clause. + Something attempted, something done, + Has earn’d a night’s repose.” + +To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local +societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from +amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable man, whose +history I have read with feelings that I could not adequately express +under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who +worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from +fatigue: who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five +shillings a-week: who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production +of the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved +a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds: who is +now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in some respects an original +collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected +the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: who is worthily the president +of his own local Literary Institution, and who was at his work this time +last night as foreman in a mill. + +So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many +more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary +test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the +printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with +equal gravity, describes his occupation as “nursing a little child.” Nor +are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, +milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is +fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by +the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably +distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an +admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household +economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, and +if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I +should positively get up at four o’clock in the morning with the +determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in +search of a wife. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily +occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the +working of this Association, than any number of speakers could possibly +present to you. Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable +people is the Association’s best and most effective triumph in the +present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the +future. As its temporary mouth-piece, I would beg to say to that portion +of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can +never hold itself apart from them;—can never set itself above them; that +their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and +that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In +particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing +will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence +of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it +gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving +brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they +are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes, +simply because the Institution does not presume to doubt that persons who +have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money +serviceable—because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up +babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows it is given, and +knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, +and, above all, perfect independence. + +Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective +audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold +which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of +knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with +which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect +and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, +nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of +them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For +the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the +shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot, which was once +always saying, without knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge was +a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the +mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an +English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been—as my friend Mr. +Carlyle vigorously has it—“blasted into space;” and there, as to this +world, is an end of them. + +So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first +place, let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual +improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, +through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom +you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency +of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves +in this matter with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. +Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, +which is always very near to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the +midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell of in +figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part +of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a +slate or demonstrated by a microscope—do not let us, in the laudable +pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the +imagination which equally surround us as a part of the great scheme. Let +the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, +always remember those fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments +that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle +enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The +hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just +balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a +blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as +He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of +the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the +wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that +condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and +passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always +remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the +imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and +help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all +followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed, when it +informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and the heart too, +it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates +the universe. + + + + +XXIV. +COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858. + + +[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle Hotel, on +the occasion of the presentation to Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold watch, +as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his Christmas Carol, given in +December of the previous year, in aid of the funds of the Coventry +Institute. The chair was taken by C. W. Hoskyns, Esq. Mr. Dickens +ackowledged the testimonial in the following words:] + +MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Vice-chairman, and Gentlemen,—I hope your minds will be +greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my +life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under +any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as +these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this +pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, +which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so +unaffected, so earnest, and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has +decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, +and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament +would be almost an impertinence. + +Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply +I feel your kindness. This watch, with which you have presented me, +shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my +wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall +reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you that after +this night the object of those labours will not less than before be to +uphold the right and to do good. And when I have done with time and its +measurement, this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven +boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways, +or to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only +possible, but probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of +years hence, who knows? in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of +Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. + +Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts, I can +assure you that the memory of to-night, and of your picturesque and +interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more +hear the lightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired +in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment. + + * * * * * + +[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr. +Dickens said:] + +THERE may be a great variety of conflicting opinions with regard to +farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm; +but, however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, +there can be but one opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer,—and it is +the health of that distinguished agriculturist which I have to propose. + +In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for +anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it _is_, exceedingly +important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but +I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I +positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very +rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that, we +shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of +wisdom, which must spring up when ever he is sown, I take leave to +propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which +he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget. + + + + +XXV. +LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862. + + +[At a Dinner of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, the +following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the chair:—] + +SEVEN or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever being +called upon to fill the chair at an anniversary festival of the Artists’ +General Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest reference to +such an occasion, I selected the administration of that Charity as the +model on which I desired that another should be reformed, both as +regarded the mode in which the relief was afforded, and the singular +economy with which its funds were administered. As a proof of the latter +quality during the past year, the cost of distributing £1,126 among the +recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more than +£100, inclusive of all office charges and expenses. The experience and +knowledge of those entrusted with the management of the funds are a +guarantee that the last available farthing of the funds will be +distributed among proper and deserving recipients. Claiming, on my part, +to be related in some degree to the profession of an artist, I disdain to +stoop to ask for charity, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, on +behalf of the Artists. In its broader and higher signification of +generous confidence, lasting trustfulness, love and confiding belief, I +very readily associate that cardinal virtue with art. I decline to +present the artist to the notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as +a strange, unaccountable, moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly in the +street of life to be helped over the road by the crossing-sweeper; on the +contrary, I present the artist as a reasonable creature, a sensible +gentleman, and as one well acquainted with the value of his time, and +that of other people, as if he were in the habit of going on high ’Change +every day. The Artist whom I wish to present to the notice of the +Meeting is one to whom the perfect enjoyment of the five senses is +essential to every achievement of his life. He can gain no wealth nor +fame by buying something which he never touched, and selling it to +another who would also never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike +out for himself every spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps +consumed him. He must win the battle of life with his own hand, and with +his own eyes, and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, +non-commissioned officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms, +infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I ask +help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a cripple +from his birth, but I ask it as part payment of a great debt which all +sensible and civilised creatures owe to art, as a mark of respect to art, +as a decoration—not as a badge—as a remembrance of what this land, or any +land, would be without art, and as the token of an appreciation of the +works of the most successful artists of this country. With respect to +the society of which I am the advocate, I am gratified that it is so +liberally supported by the most distinguished artists, and that it has +the confidence of men who occupy the highest rank as artists, above the +reach of reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, and +whose support is above all price. Artists who have obtained wide-world +reputation know well that many deserving and persevering men, or their +widows and orphans, have received help from this fund, and some of the +artists who have received this help are now enrolled among the +subscribers to the Institution. + + + + +XXVI. +LONDON, MAY 20, 1862. + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as +chairman, at the annual Festival of the Newsvendors’ and Provident +Institution, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern on the above date.] + +WHEN I had the honour of being asked to preside last year, I was +prevented by indisposition, and I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, +to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellent +speech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speech with +considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong misgiving that +I had better have presided last year with neuralgia in my face and my +subject in my head, rather than preside this year with my neuralgia all +gone and my subject anticipated. Therefore, I wish to preface the toast +this evening by making the managers of this Institution one very solemn +and repentant promise, and it is, if ever I find myself obliged to +provide a substitute again, they may rely upon my sending the most +speechless man of my acquaintance. + +The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of the +universality of the newsman’s calling. Nothing, I think, is left for me +but to imagine the newsman’s burden itself, to unfold one of those +wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take a +bird’s-eye view of its general character and contents. So, if you +please, choosing my own time—though the newsman cannot choose his time, +for he must be equally active in winter or summer, in sunshine or sleet, +in light or darkness, early or late—but, choosing my own time, I shall +for two or three moments start off with the newsman on a fine May +morning, and take a view of the wonderful broadsheets which every day he +scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thing that occurs +to me following the newsman is, that every day we are born, that every +day we are married—some of us—and that every day we are dead; +consequently, the first thing the newsvendor’s column informs me is, that +Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is +dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the next +column, is that Atkins has grown to be seventeen years old, and that he +has run away; for, at last, my eye lights on the fact that William A., +who is seventeen years old, is adjured immediately to return to his +disconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the satisfaction +of everyone. I am afraid he will never return, simply because, if he had +meant to come back, he would never have gone away. Immediately below, I +find a mysterious character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is +only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, by several figures, +and several stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation that +the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that the +elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my +industrious friend, the newsman, I find there are great fleets of ships +bound to all parts of the earth, that they all want a little more +stowage, a little more cargo, that they have a few more berths to let, +that they have all the most spacious decks, that they are all built of +teak, and copper-bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience, +and that they are all A1 at Lloyds’, and anywhere else. Still glancing +over the shoulder of my friend the newsman, I find I am offered all kinds +of house-lodging, clerks, servants, and situations, which I can possibly +or impossibly want. I learn, to my intense gratification, that I need +never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my +complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; that if +I have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or Turkish baths, I am +told where to get them, and that, if I want an income of seven pounds +a-week, I may have it by sending half-a-crown in postage-stamps. Then I +look to the police intelligence, and I can discover that I may bite off a +human living nose cheaply, but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a +calf from a shop-window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find +that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of killing an +inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little incident will not +affect the testimonials to my character, but that I shall be described as +a most amiable young man, and as, above all things, remarkable for the +singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. Then I turn my +eye to the Fine Arts, and, under that head, I see that a certain “J. O.” +has most triumphantly exposed a certain “J. O. B.,” which “J. O. B.” was +remarkable for this particular ugly feature, that I was requested to +deprive myself of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that +time it was to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for +my courtesy in having my picture most impertinently covered with a wet +blanket. To sum up the results of a glance over my newsman’s shoulder, +it gives a comprehensive knowledge of what is going on over the continent +of Europe, and also of what is going on over the continent of America, to +say nothing of such little geographical regions as India and China. + +Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s shoulders from the +whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, that most +promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on steamboats, railway +stations, and at every turn. His profits are small, he has a great +amount of anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wear and +tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and he is looked +for with pleasurable excitement every day, except when he lends the paper +for an hour, and when he is punctual in calling for it, which is +sometimes very painful. I think the lesson we can learn from our newsman +is some new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of +its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent lesson, +some members of the trade originated this society, which affords them +assistance in time of sickness and indigence. The subscription is +infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five shillings. Looking at the +returns before me, the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but +it has only been slow for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure. +The pensions granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded +capital, and, therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as the +Bank. It is stated that there are several newsvendors who are not +members of this society; but that is true in all institutions which have +come under my experience. The persons who are most likely to stand in +need of the benefits which an institution confers, are usually the +persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late. + + + + +XXVII. +LONDON, MAY 11, 1864. + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at a +public meeting, for the purpose of founding the Shakespeare Schools, in +connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the following +address:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is +the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be very +careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after him. +Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to be the cause of +speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches with +exemplary attention than to stand up to make them; so I shall confine +myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as +plain and as short an exposition as I can possibly give you of the +reasons why we come together. + +First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in +commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do with any +commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that +mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by no +means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration were +a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be +pursuing precisely the same object, though we should not pursue it under +precisely the same circumstances. The facts are these: There is, as you +know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic +College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in +the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which dates some five or +six years back, expressly provides for the establishment of schools in +connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the +scheme, when it was explained to him, was specially interesting to his +Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the +desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found +educational institutions for the rising generation, as well as to +establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least +having their faces turned towards the setting sun. The leading members +of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing +necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their +harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, good-will, +and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their efforts +to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the +respected gentleman {177} under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I +hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always +am to see him here. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster +and his brothers and sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this +present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are +built, completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of +them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds +are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the +nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster +was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the +establishment of the schools, when, this Tercentenary celebration being +in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare +Committee their just and reasonable claim to participate in the results +of any subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the +committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of +Shakespeare’s own art, through the education of their children, was +surely a monument worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the +committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the +public good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim +the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to +understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the +Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those schools, as a +design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to find +a new self-supporting public school; with this additional feature, that +it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two +separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land +belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no +charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. +It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting +public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a +large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property +in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a +project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to +be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their schools +the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the followers of +Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in them. With this view, it is +confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for +forty foundation scholars—say, twenty girls and twenty boys—who shall +always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall always be the +children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you +will understand, is to be equal to the best existing public school. It +is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it +is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely, +and as cheaply as any existing public school. + +Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are +foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at nearly all our old +schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our +standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanising +art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time be +doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its +account in it. Taking this view of the case—and I cannot be satisfied to +take any lower one—I cannot make a sorry face about “the poor player.” I +think it is a term very much misused and very little understood—being, I +venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players themselves. +Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to you +exceptionally in this wise—that he follows a peculiar and precarious +vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of accumulating +money—that that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many +undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one—that it is not a +vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but +in which he must earn every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the +aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and +his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is +reason enough to render him some little help in opening for his children +their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not +often found, except under the pressure of necessity, or where there is +strong hereditary talent—which is always an exceptional case—that the +children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore +need not in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they +would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the +reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction and +usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in that +market’s over-rich superabundance. + +This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of +our English public schools. On the committee stands the name of that +eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire +this liberal spirit, and your admiration—which I cordially share—brings +me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is not in +England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has +been called a little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is so, with +the exception of one of life’s worst foibles—for, as far as I know, +nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence of servility to +mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boy +there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. +We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, +free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I +apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these +later times that objection has been made to children of dramatic artists +in certain little snivelling private schools—but in public schools never. +Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in +recognizing the capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a +little hole-and-corner place of education for their children exclusively, +but in addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to +them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a +public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is now to +be found. + +I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have +endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the +possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed +condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up +a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry +in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he +distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you +have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong +foundation of these schools to-day, I will call, as the mover of the +first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell. + + + + +XXVIII. +LONDON, MAY 9, 1865. + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of the +Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in proposing the +toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—Dr. Johnson’s experience of that club, the members +of which have travelled over one another’s minds in every direction, is +not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual president of a +society like this. Having on previous occasions said everything about it +that he could possibly find to say, he is again produced, with the same +awful formalities, to say everything about it that he cannot possibly +find to say. It struck me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now to +Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred president is very +like that of the stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday. That +unfortunate animal when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes +place, generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at a cool trot, +venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives, +and there subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence, until he is +again brought out to be again followed by exactly the same field, under +exactly the same circumstances, next Easter Monday. + +The difficulties of the situation—and here I mean the president and not +the stag—are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the +peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity, +reality, and usefulness, believe me—for I have carefully considered the +point—it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it +were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of wool bears +no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a +word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were lavished in +patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small +annuities for hard-working people who have themselves contributed to its +funds—if its management were intrusted to people who could by no +possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, +business, practical hands—if it hoarded when it ought to spend—if it got +by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress +you very much by my indignation. If its managers could tell me that it +was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had +been kept by Mr. Edmunds—or by “Tom,”—if its treasurer had run away with +the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. +But I have no such chance. Just as a nation is happy whose records are +barren, so is a society fortunate that has no history—and its president +unfortunate. I can only assure you that this society continues its +plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it does a +great deal of good at a very small cost, and that the objects of its care +and the bulk of its members are faithful working servants of the +public—sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, +and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street-corners, at every +railway train, at every steam-boat; through the agency of every +establishment and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as +master or as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, +while their trouble and responsibility are very great. + +The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that wonderful +engine—the newspaper press. Still I think we all know very well that +they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes is to a +good water supply. Just as a goodly store of water at Watford would be a +tantalization to thirsty London if it were not brought into town for its +use, so any amount of news accumulated at Printing-house Square, or Fleet +Street, or the Strand, would be if there were no skill and enterprise +engaged in its dissemination. + +We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every-day life, that “We +never know the value of anything until we lose it.” Let us try the +newsvendors by the test. A few years ago we discovered one morning that +there was a strike among the cab-drivers. Now, let us imagine a strike +of newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in vain for the newspapers. +Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying to know the shipping news, +the commercial news, the foreign news, the legal news, the criminal news, +the dramatic news. Imagine the paralysis on all the provincial +exchanges; the silence and desertion of all the newsmen’s exchanges in +London. Imagine the circulation of the blood of the nation and of the +country standing still,—the clock of the world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, +the great Reuter—whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by +the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell +and wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear—think how even he +would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they +would become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up +the threads and stitches of the electric needle, and scatter them over +the land. + +It is curious to consider—and the thought occurred to me this day, when I +was out for a stroll pondering over the duties of this evening, which +even then were looming in the distance, but not quite so far off as I +could wish—I found it very curious to consider that though the newsman +must be allowed to be a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, +or what-not conventional messenger from the clouds, and although we must +allow that he is of this earth, and has a good deal of it on his boots, +still that he has two very remarkable characteristics, to which none of +his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claim. One is that he +is always the messenger of civilization; the other that he is at least +equally so—not only in what he brings, but in what he ceases to bring. +Thus the time was, and not so many years ago either, when the newsman +constantly brought home to our doors—though I am afraid not to our +hearts, which were custom-hardened—the most terrific accounts of murders, +of our fellow-creatures being publicly put to death for what we now call +trivial offences, in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday +morning. At the same time the newsman regularly brought to us the +infliction of other punishments, which were demoralising to the innocent +part of the community, while they did not operate as punishments in +deterring offenders from the perpetration of crimes. In those same days, +also, the newsman brought to us daily accounts of a regularly accepted +and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, +littering them down on straw, starving them on bread and water, damaging +their clothes, and making periodical exhibitions of them at a small +charge; and that on a Sunday one of our public resorts was a kind of +demoniacal zoological gardens. They brought us accounts at the same time +of some damage done to the machinery which was destined to supply the +operative classes with employment. In the same time they brought us +accounts of riots for bread, which were constantly occurring, and +undermining society and the state; of the most terrible explosions of +class against class, and of the habitual employment of spies for the +discovery—if not for the origination—of plots, in which both sides found +in those days some relief. In the same time the same newsmen were +apprising us of a state of society all around us in which the grossest +sensuality and intemperance were the rule; and not as now, when the +ignorant, the wicked, and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious +exceptions—a state of society in which the professional bully was +rampant, and when deadly duels were daily fought for the most absurd and +disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceased to tell us of. This +state of society has discontinued in England for ever; and when we +remember the undoubted truth, that the change could never have been +effected without the aid of the load which the newsman carries, surely it +is not very romantic to express the hope on his behalf that the public +will show to him some little token of the sympathetic remembrance which +we are all of us glad to bestow on the bearers of happy tidings—the +harbingers of good news. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am coming to a +conclusion; for that conclusion I have a precedent. You all of you know +how pleased you are on your return from a morning’s walk to learn that +the collector has called. Well, I am the collector for this district, +and I hope you will bear in mind that I have respectfully called. +Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presented myself, I need +only say technically two things. First, that its annuities are granted +out of its funded capital, and therefore it is safe as the Bank; and, +secondly, that they are attainable by such a slight exercise of prudence +and fore-thought, that a payment of 25_s._ extending over a period of +five years, entitles a subscriber—if a male—to an annuity of £16 a-year, +and a female to £12 a-year. Now, bear in mind that this is an +institution on behalf of which the collector has called, leaving behind +his assurance that what you can give to one of the most faithful of your +servants shall be well bestowed and faithfully applied to the purposes to +which you intend them, and to those purposes alone. + + + + +XXIX. +NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND. +LONDON, MAY 20, 1865. + + +[At the second annual dinner of the Institution, held at the Freemasons’ +Tavern, on Saturday, the 20th May, 1865, the following speech was +delivered by the chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in proposing the toast of +the evening:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—When a young child is produced after dinner to be +shown to a circle of admiring relations and friends, it may generally be +observed that their conversation—I suppose in an instinctive remembrance +of the uncertainty of infant life—takes a retrospective turn. As how +much the child has grown since the last dinner; what a remarkably fine +child it is, to have been born only two or three years ago, how much +stronger it looks now than before it had the measles, and so forth. When +a young institution is produced after dinner, there is not the same +uncertainty or delicacy as in the case of the child, and it may be +confidently predicted of it that if it deserve to live it will surely +live, and that if it deserve to die it will surely die. The proof of +desert in such a case as this must be mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, +in what the society means to do with its money; secondly, in the extent +to which it is supported by the class with whom it originated, and for +whose benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in the power of its hold upon +the public. I add this lastly, because no such institution that ever I +heard of ever yet dreamed of existing apart from the public, or ever yet +considered it a degradation to accept the public support. + +Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its money is to +grant relief to members in want or distress, and to the widows, families, +parents, or other near relatives of deceased members in right of a +moderate provident annual subscription—commutable, I observe, for a +moderate provident life subscription—and its members comprise the whole +paid class of literary contributors to the press of the United Kingdom, +and every class of reporters. The number of its members at this time +last year was something below 100. At the present time it is somewhat +above 170, not including 30 members of the press who are regular +subscribers, but have not as yet qualified as regular members. This +number is steadily on the increase, not only as regards the metropolitan +press, but also as regards the provincial throughout the country. I have +observed within these few days that many members of the press at +Manchester have lately at a meeting expressed a strong brotherly interest +in this Institution, and a great desire to extend its operations, and to +strengthen its hands, provided that something in the independent nature +of life assurance and the purchase of deferred annuities could be +introduced into its details, and always assuming that in it the +metropolis and the provinces stand on perfectly equal ground. This +appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that I can hardly have a +doubt of a response on the part of the managers, or of the beneficial and +harmonious results. It only remains to add, on this head of desert, the +agreeable circumstance that out of all the money collected in aid of the +society during the last year more than one-third came exclusively from +the press. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim—the last point of +desert—the hold upon the public—I think I may say that probably not one +single individual in this great company has failed to-day to see a +newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something derived from a +newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her yesterday. Of all +those restless crowds that have this day thronged the streets of this +enormous city, the same may be said as the general gigantic rule. It may +be said almost equally, of the brightest and the dullest, the largest and +the least provincial town in the empire; and this, observe, not only as +to the active, the industrious, and the healthy among the population, but +also to the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and the deaf and dumb. Now, +if the men who provide this all-pervading presence, this wonderful, +ubiquitous newspaper, with every description of intelligence on every +subject of human interest, collected with immense pains and immense +patience, often by the exercise of a laboriously-acquired faculty united +to a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the night, at the +sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from the mental strain) by +the constant overtasking of the two most delicate of the senses, sight +and hearing—I say, if the men who, through the newspapers, from day to +day, or from night to night, or from week to week, furnish the public +with so much to remember, have not a righteous claim to be remembered by +the public in return, then I declare before God I know no working class +of the community who have. + +It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly as this, +if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the extraordinary combination of +remarkable qualities involved in the production of any newspaper. But +assuming the majority of this associated body to be composed of +reporters, because reporters, of one kind or other, compose the majority +of the literary staff of almost every newspaper that is not a +compilation, I would venture to remind you, if I delicately may, in the +august presence of members of Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to +the reporters if it were only for their skill in the two great sciences +of condensation and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an +Imperial Parliament, however popularly constituted, under however +glorious a constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr. +Johnson, in one of his violent assertions, declared that “the man who was +afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir.” By no means binding myself +to this opinion—though admitting that the man who is afraid of a +newspaper will generally be found to be rather something like it, I must +still freely own that I should approach my Parliamentary debate with +infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully served up for my +breakfast. Ever since the time when the old man and his son took their +donkey home, which were the old Greek days, I believe, and probably ever +since the time when the donkey went into the ark—perhaps he did not like +his accommodation there—but certainly from that time downwards, he has +objected to go in any direction required of him—from the remotest periods +it has been found impossible to please everybody. + +I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution has +been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freëst discussion and +inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour but what it can win, it +has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to urge against objection. No +institution conceived in perfect honesty and good faith has a right to +object to being questioned to any extent, and any institution so based +must be in the end the better for it. Moreover, that this society has +been questioned in quarters deserving of the most respectful attention I +take to be an indisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that +respectful attention, and I have come out of the discussion to where you +see me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded by institutions between +which and this I can descry no difference. The painters’ art has four or +five such institutions. The musicians’ art, so generously and charmingly +represented here, has likewise several such institutions. In my own art +there is one, concerning the details of which my noble friend the +president of the society and myself have torn each other’s hair to a +considerable extent, and which I would, if I could, assimilate more +nearly to this. In the dramatic art there are four, and I never yet +heard of any objection to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases +of some famous actors of large gains, who having through the whole period +of their successes positively refused to establish a right in them, +became, in their old age and decline, repentant suppliants for their +bounty. Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is +objectionable because a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might +report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in little? +Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it is to be +observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate reporter under +pretty much the same suspicion—apart from this consideration, I reply +that it is notorious in all newspaper offices that every such man is +reported according to the position he can gain in the public eye, and +according to the force and weight of what he has to say. And if there +were ever to be among the members of this society one so very foolish to +his brethren, and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to abuse +his trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with +journalism, whether they believe it possible that any newspaper so +ill-conducted as to fail instantly to detect him could possibly exist as +a thriving enterprise for one single twelvemonth? No, ladies and +gentlemen, the blundering stupidity of such an offence would have no +chance against the acute sagacity of newspaper editors. But I will go +further, and submit to you that its commission, if it be to be dreaded at +all, is far more likely on the part of some recreant camp-follower of a +scattered, disunited, and half-recognized profession, than when there is +a public opinion established in it, by the union of all classes of its +members for the common good: the tendency of which union must in the +nature of things be to raise the lower members of the press towards the +higher, and never to bring the higher members to the lower level. + +I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing words that I feel a +desire to say in remembrance of some circumstances, rather special, +attending my present occupation of this chair, to give those words +something of a personal tone. I am not here advocating the case of a +mere ordinary client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold a +brief to-night for my brothers. I went into the gallery of the House of +Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, and I +left it—I can hardly believe the inexorable truth—nigh thirty years ago. +I have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which +many of my brethren at home in England here, many of my modern +successors, can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed +for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches in +which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would +have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my +hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, +galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at +the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I +was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle yard there to identify, for the +amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once “took,” as we used to +call it, an election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst +of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the +county, and under such a pelting rain, that I remember two goodnatured +colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over +my notebook, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical +procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row +of the old gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet +by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, +where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep—kept in waiting, +say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning home from +excited political meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, +I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every description of +vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated on miry +by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a +wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken postboys, and have +got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten +compliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from +the broadest of hearts I ever knew. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an assurance to +you that I never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. The +pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its +exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of +hand or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that +I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from +long disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, +or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon does occur—I +sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the +speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even +find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it +all. Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what I know; as a +confirmation of my undying interest in this old calling. Accept them as +a proof that my feeling for the location of my youth is not a sentiment +taken up to-night to be thrown away to-morrow—but is a faithful sympathy +which is a part of myself. I verily believe—I am sure—that if I had +never quitted my old calling I should have been foremost and zealous in +the interests of this Institution, believing it to be a sound, a +wholesome, and a good one. Ladies and gentlemen, I am to propose to you +to drink “Prosperity to the Newspaper Press Fund,” with which toast I +will connect, as to its acknowledgment, a name that has shed new +brilliancy on even the foremost newspaper in the world—the illustrious +name of Mr. Russell. + + + + +XXX. +KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865. + + +[On the above date the members of the “Guild of Literature and Art” +proceeded to the neighbourhood of Stevenage, near the magnificent seat of +the President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built in the Gothic +style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. After their survey, +the party drove to Knebworth to partake of the hospitality of Lord +Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of the guests, proposed the health of +the host in the following words:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It was said by a very sagacious person, whose +authority I am sure my friend of many years will not impugn, seeing that +he was named Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and philosopher of Paul +Clifford—it was said by that remarkable man, “Life is short, and why +should speeches be long?” An aphorism so sensible under all +circumstances, and particularly in the circumstances in which we are +placed, with this delicious weather and such charming gardens near us, I +shall practically adopt on the present occasion; and the rather so +because the speech of my friend was exhaustive of the subject, as his +speeches always are, though not in the least exhaustive of his audience. +In thanking him for the toast which he has done us the honour to propose, +allow me to correct an error into which he has fallen. Allow me to state +that these houses never could have been built but for his zealous and +valuable co-operation, and also that the pleasant labour out of which +they have arisen would have lost one of its greatest charms and strongest +impulses, if it had lost his ever ready sympathy with that class in which +he has risen to the foremost rank, and of which he is the brightest +ornament. + +Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say, on +behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we shall +invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be placed under any +social disadvantage. They will be invited to occupy them as artists, +receiving them as a mark of the high respect in which they are held by +their fellow-workers. As artists I hope they will often exercise their +calling within those walls for the general advantage; and they will +always claim, on equal terms, the hospitality of their generous +neighbour. + +Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelings of my brothers +and sisters in literature in proposing “Health, long life, and prosperity +to our distinguished host.” Ladies and gentlemen, you know very well +that when the health, life, and beauty now overflowing these halls shall +have fled, crowds of people will come to see the place where he lived and +wrote. Setting aside the orator and statesman—for happily we know no +party here but this agreeable party—setting aside all, this you know very +well, that this is the home of a very great man whose connexion with +Hertfordshire every other county in England will envy for many long years +to come. You know that when this hall is dullest and emptiest you can +make it when you please brightest and fullest by peopling it with the +creations of his brilliant fancy. Let us all wish together that they may +be many more—for the more they are the better it will be, and, as he +always excels himself, the better they will be. I ask you to listen to +their praises and not to mine, and to let them, not me, propose his +health. + + + + +XXXI. +LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866. + + +[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as Chairman at the annual dinner +of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Fund, at Willis’s Rooms, where +he made the following speech:] + +LADIES, before I couple you with the gentlemen, which will be at least +proper to the inscription over my head (St. Valentine’s day)—before I do +so, allow me, on behalf of my grateful sex here represented, to thank you +for the great pleasure and interest with which your gracious presence at +these festivals never fails to inspire us. There is no English custom +which is so manifestly a relic of savage life as that custom which +usually excludes you from participation in similar gatherings. And +although the crime carries its own heavy punishment along with it, in +respect that it divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornament +and of its most fascinating charm, still the offence is none the less to +be severely reprehended on every possible occasion, as outraging equally +nature and art. I believe that as little is known of the saint whose +name is written here as can well be known of any saint or sinner. We, +your loyal servants, are deeply thankful to him for having somehow gained +possession of one day in the year—for having, as no doubt he has, +arranged the almanac for 1866—expressly to delight us with the enchanting +fiction that we have some tender proprietorship in you which we should +scarcely dare to claim on a less auspicious occasion. Ladies, the utmost +devotion sanctioned by the saint we beg to lay at your feet, and any +little innocent privileges to which we may be entitled by the same +authority we beg respectfully but firmly to claim at your hands. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to inform you that I am +going to propose “Prosperity to the Dramatic, Musical, and Equestrian +Sick Fund Association,” and, further, that I should be going to ask you +actively to promote that prosperity by liberally contributing to its +funds, if that task were not reserved for a much more persuasive speaker. +But I rest the strong claim of the society for its useful existence and +its truly charitable functions on a very few words, though, as well as I +can recollect, upon something like six grounds. First, it relieves the +sick; secondly, it buries the dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members +of the profession to journey to accept new engagements whenever they find +themselves stranded in some remote, inhospitable place, or when, from +other circumstances, they find themselves perfectly crippled as to +locomotion for want of money; fourthly, it often finds such engagements +for them by acting as their honest, disinterested agent; fifthly, it is +its principle to act humanely upon the instant, and never, as is too +often the case within my experience, to beat about the bush till the bush +is withered and dead; lastly, the society is not in the least degree +exclusive, but takes under its comprehensive care the whole range of the +theatre and the concert-room, from the manager in his room of state, or +in his caravan, or at the drum-head—down to the theatrical housekeeper, +who is usually to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, or down to +the hall porter, who passes his life in a thorough draught—and, to the +best of my observation, in perpetually interrupted endeavours to eat +something with a knife and fork out of a basin, by a dusty fire, in that +extraordinary little gritty room, upon which the sun never shines, and on +the portals of which are inscribed the magic words, “stage-door.” + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers its benefits +sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by way of gift; sometimes by way of +assurance at very low premiums; sometimes to members, oftener to +non-members; always expressly, remember, through the hands of a secretary +or committee well acquainted with the wants of the applicants, and +thoroughly versed, if not by hard experience at least by sympathy, in the +calamities and uncertainties incidental to the general calling. One must +know something of the general calling to know what those afflictions are. +A lady who had been upon the stage from her earliest childhood till she +was a blooming woman, and who came from a long line of provincial actors +and actresses, once said to me when she was happily married; when she was +rich, beloved, courted; when she was mistress of a fine house—once said +to me at the head of her own table, surrounded by distinguished guests of +every degree, “Oh, but I have never forgotten the hard time when I was on +the stage, and when my baby brother died, and when my poor mother and I +brought the little baby from Ireland to England, and acted three nights +in England, as we had acted three nights in Ireland, with the pretty +creature lying upon the only bed in our lodging before we got the money +to pay for its funeral.” + +Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to this hour; but, +happily, at this day and in this hour this association has arisen to be +the timely friend of such great distress. + +It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fall into these +straits. Struggling artists must necessarily change from place to place, +and thus it frequently happens that they become, as it were, strangers in +every place, and very slight circumstances—a passing illness, the +sickness of the husband, wife, or child, a serious town, an +anathematising expounder of the gospel of gentleness and forbearance—any +one of these causes may often in a few hours wreck them upon a rock in +the barren ocean; and then, happily, this society, with the swift +alacrity of the life-boat, dashes to the rescue, and takes them off. +Looking just now over the last report issued by this society, and +confining my scrutiny to the head of illness alone, I find that in one +year, I think, 672 days of sickness had been assuaged by its means. In +nine years, which then formed the term of its existence, as many as 5,500 +and odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and odd days of sickness, this +is a very serious sum, but add the nights! Add the nights—those long, +dreary hours in the twenty-four when the shadow of death is darkest, when +despondency is strongest, and when hope is weakest, before you gauge the +good that is done by this institution, and before you gauge the good that +really will be done by every shilling that you bestow here to-night. +Add, more than all, that the improvidence, the recklessness of the +general multitude of poor members of this profession, I should say is a +cruel, conventional fable. Add that there is no class of society the +members of which so well help themselves, or so well help each other. +Not in the whole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and York Minster, +not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange, not in the whole list +of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns of Court, not in the +College of Physicians, not in the College of Surgeons, can there possibly +be found more remarkable instances of uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, +constant self-denial, of the generous remembrance of the claims of +kindred and professional brotherhood, than will certainly be found in the +dingiest and dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid theatre—even in +the raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by weather. + +I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering actors +when I address them as one of their trustees at their General Fund +dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody, unless it be sometimes myself; +but, in such a company as the present, I always feel it my manful duty to +bear my testimony to this fact—first, because it is opposed to a stupid, +unfeeling libel; secondly, because my doing so may afford some slight +encouragement to the persons who are unjustly depreciated; and lastly, +and most of all, because I know it is the truth. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what we professionally +call “ring down” on these remarks. If you, such members of the general +public as are here, will only think the great theatrical curtain has +really fallen and been taken up again for the night on that dull, dark +vault which many of us know so well; if you will only think of the +theatre or other place of entertainment as empty; if you will only think +of the “float,” or other gas-fittings, as extinguished; if you will only +think of the people who have beguiled you of an evening’s care, whose +little vanities and almost childish foibles are engendered in their +competing face to face with you for your favour—surely it may be said +their feelings are partly of your making, while their virtues are all +their own. If you will only do this, and follow them out of that sham +place into the real world, where it rains real rain, snows real snow, and +blows real wind; where people sustain themselves by real money, which is +much harder to get, much harder to make, and very much harder to give +away than the pieces of tobacco-pipe in property bags—if you will only do +this, and do it in a really kind, considerate spirit, this society, then +certain of the result of the night’s proceedings, can ask no more. I beg +to propose to you to drink “Prosperity to the Dramatic, Equestrian, and +Musical Sick Fund Association.” + + * * * * * + +[Mr. Dickens, in proposing the next toast, said:—] + +Gentlemen: as I addressed myself to the ladies last time, so I address +you this time, and I give you the delightful assurance that it is +positively my last appearance but one on the present occasion. A certain +Mr. Pepys, who was Secretary for the Admiralty in the days of Charles +II., who kept a diary well in shorthand, which he supposed no one could +read, and which consequently remains to this day the most honest diary +known to print—Mr. Pepys had two special and very strong likings, the +ladies and the theatres. But Mr. Pepys, whenever he committed any slight +act of remissness, or any little peccadillo which was utterly and wholly +untheatrical, used to comfort his conscience by recording a vow that he +would abstain from the theatres for a certain time. In the first part of +Mr. Pepys’ character I have no doubt we fully agree with him; in the +second I have no doubt we do not. + +I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembrance of a passage in his +diary that I was reading the other night, from which it appears that he +was not only curious in plays, but curious in sermons; and that one night +when he happened to be walking past St. Dunstan’s Church, he turned, went +in, and heard what he calls “a very edifying discourse;” during the +delivery of which discourse, he notes in his diary—“I stood by a pretty +young maid, whom I did attempt to take by the hand.” But he adds—“She +would not; and I did perceive that she had pins in her pocket with which +to prick me if I should touch her again—and was glad that I spied her +design.” Afterwards, about the close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. +Pepys found himself near another pretty, fair young maid, who would seem +upon the whole to have had no pins, and to have been more impressible. + +Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest to you is, that we +have been this evening in St. James’s much more timid than Mr. Pepys was +in St. Dunstan’s, and that we have conducted ourselves very much better. +As a slight recompense to us for our highly meritorious conduct, and as a +little relief to our over-charged hearts, I beg to propose that we devote +this bumper to invoking a blessing on the ladies. It is the privilege of +this society annually to hear a lady speak for her own sex. Who so +competent to do this as Mrs. Stirling? Surely one who has so gracefully +and captivatingly, with such an exquisite mixture of art, and fancy, and +fidelity, represented her own sex in innumerable charities, under an +infinite variety of phases, cannot fail to represent them well in her own +character, especially when it is, amidst her many triumphs, the most +agreeable of all. I beg to propose to you “The Ladies,” and I will +couple with that toast the name of Mrs. Stirling. + + + + +XXXII. +LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866. + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Annual Festival of +the Royal General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, in +proposing the health of the Lord Mayor (Sir Benjamin Phillips), who +occupied the chair.] + +GENTLEMEN, in my childish days I remember to have had a vague but +profound admiration for a certain legendary person called the Lord +Mayor’s fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacity of +that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I really regarded +him with feelings approaching to absolute veneration, because my nurse +informed me on every gastronomic occasion that the Lord Mayor’s fool +liked everything that was good. You will agree with me, I have no doubt, +that if this discriminating jester had existed at the present time he +could not fail to have liked his master very much, seeing that so good a +Lord Mayor is very rarely to be found, and that a better Lord Mayor could +not possibly be. + +You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about to propose to you to +drink the health of the right honourable gentleman in the chair. As one +of the Trustees of the General Theatrical Fund, I beg officially to +tender him my best thanks for lending the very powerful aid of his +presence, his influence, and his personal character to this very +deserving Institution. As his private friends we ventured to urge upon +him to do us this gracious act, and I beg to assure you that the perfect +simplicity, modesty, cordiality, and frankness with which he assented, +enhanced the gift one thousand fold. I think it must also be very +agreeable to a company like this to know that the President of the night +is not ceremoniously pretending, “positively for this night only,” to +have an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough +acquaintance with it, and that he has a living and discerning knowledge +of the merits of the great old actors. It is very pleasant to me to +remember that the Lord Mayor and I once beguiled the tedium of a journey +by exchanging our experiences upon this subject. I rather prided myself +on being something of an old stager, but I found the Lord Mayor so +thoroughly up in all the stock pieces, and so knowing and yet so fresh +about the merits of those who are most and best identified with them, +that I readily recognised in him what would be called in fistic language, +a very ugly customer—one, I assure you, by no means to be settled by any +novice not in thorough good theatrical training. + +Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancy that when the +giants in Guildhall hear the clock strike one, they come down to dinner. +Similarly, when the City of London shall hear but one single word in just +disparagement of its present Lord Mayor, whether as its enlightened chief +magistrate, or as one of its merchants, or as one of its true gentlemen, +he will then descend from the high personal place which he holds in the +general honour and esteem. Until then he will remain upon his pedestal, +and my private opinion, between ourselves, is that the giants will come +down long before him. + +Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the Lord Mayor made +his truly remarkable, and truly manly, and unaffected speech, I could not +but be struck by the odd reversal of the usual circumstances at the +Mansion House, which he presented to our view, for whereas it is a very +common thing for persons to be brought tremblingly before the Lord Mayor, +the Lord Mayor presented himself as being brought tremblingly before us. +I hope that the result may hold still further, for whereas it is a common +thing for the Lord Mayor to say to a repentant criminal who does not seem +to have much harm in him, “let me never see you here again,” so I would +propose that we all with one accord say to the Lord Mayor, “Let us by all +means see you here again on the first opportunity.” Gentlemen, I beg to +propose to you to drink, with all the honours, “The health of the right +hon. the Lord Mayor.” + + + + +XXXIII. +LONDON, MAY 7, 1866. + + +[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs dining together at the +London Tavern, on the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the +Nautilus Rowing Club, occupied the chair. The Speech that follows was +made in proposing “Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of London.” Mr. +Dickens said that:—] + +HE could not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the amateur +rowing clubs on the Thames were in the early days of his noviciate; not +to mention the difference in the build of the boats. He could not get on +in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous creature called +a “fireman waterman,” who wore an eminently tall hat, and a perfectly +unaccountable uniform, of which it might be said that if it was less +adapted for one thing than another, that thing was fire. He recollected +that this gentleman had on some former day won a King’s prize wherry, and +they used to go about in this accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing +all the hard work, while the fireman drank all the beer. The river was +very much clearer, freër, and cleaner in those days than these; but he +was persuaded that this philosophical old boatman could no more have +dreamt of seeing the spectacle which had taken place on Saturday (the +procession of the boats of the Metropolitan Amateur Rowing Clubs), or of +seeing these clubs matched for skill and speed, than he (the Chairman) +should dare to announce through the usual authentic channels that he was +to be heard of at the bar below, and that he was perfectly prepared to +accommodate Mr. James Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, he could +recollect that he had turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River +Thames with an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some +other Eton boys, and that he could hold his own against them. More +recently still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxford he was +supposed to cover himself with honour, though he must admit that he found +the “locks” so picturesque as to require much examination for the +discovery of their beauty. But what he wanted to say was this, that +though his “fireman waterman” was one of the greatest humbugs that ever +existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy, manly sport this was. +Their waterman would bid them pull away, and assure them that they were +certain of winning in some race. And here he would remark that aquatic +sports never entailed a moment’s cruelty, or a moment’s pain, upon any +living creature. Rowing men pursued recreation under circumstances which +braced their muscles, and cleared the cobwebs from their minds. He +assured them that he regarded such clubs as these as a “national +blessing.” They owed, it was true, a vast deal to steam power—as was +sometimes proved at matches on the Thames—but, at the same time, they +were greatly indebted to all that tended to keep up a healthy, manly +tone. He understood that there had been a committee selected for the +purpose of arranging a great amateur regatta, which was to take place off +Putney in the course of the season that was just begun. He could not +abstain from availing himself of this occasion to express a hope that the +committee would successfully carry on its labours to a triumphant result, +and that they should see upon the Thames, in the course of this summer, +such a brilliant sight as had never been seen there before. To secure +this there must be some hard work, skilful combinations, and rather large +subscriptions. But although the aggregate result must be great, it by no +means followed that it need be at all large in its individual details. + +[In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison between the +paying off or purification of the national debt and the purification of +the River Thames.] + + + + +XXXIV. +LONDON, JUNE 5, 1867. + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Ninth Anniversary Festival +of the Railway Benevolent Society, at Willis’s Rooms, and in proposing +the toast of the evening, made the following speech.] + +ALTHOUGH we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly fifty +years the time when one of the first literary authorities of this country +insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train that the Legisture +might disastrously sanction being limited by Act of Parliament to ten +miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, and every +evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly to Ireland and +to Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour; much as it was objected +in its time to vaccination, that it must have a tendency to impart to +human children something of the nature of the cow, whereas I believe to +this very time vaccinated children are found to be as easily defined from +calves as they ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening influence +on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a +contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened +providentially-inflicted pain, which would be a reason for your not +rubbing your face if you had the tooth-ache, or not rubbing your nose if +it itched; so it was evidently predicted that the railway system, even if +anything so absurd could be productive of any result, would infallibly +throw half the nation out of employment; whereas, you observe that the +very cause and occasion of our coming here together to-night is, apart +from the various tributary channels of occupation which it has opened +out, that it has called into existence a specially and directly employed +population of upwards of 200,000 persons. + +Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 +persons engaged upon the various railways of the United Kingdom cannot be +rich; and although their duties require great care and great exactness, +and although our lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands of +many of them, still, for the most of these places there will be always +great competition, because they are not posts which require skilled +workmen to hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high where +competition is great, and you also know very well that railway directors, +in the bargains they make, and the salaries which they pay, have to deal +with the money of the shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus +it necessarily happens that railway officers and servants are not +remunerated on the whole by any means splendidly, and that they cannot +hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet the ordinary +wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed that the general +hazards are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of their +avocations, exceptionally great, so very great, I find, as to be +stateable, on the authority of a parliamentary paper, by the very +startling round of figures, that whereas one railway traveller in +8,000,000 of passengers is killed, one railway servant in every 2,000 is +killed. + +Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual prudential +and benevolent considerations, there came to be established among railway +officers and servants, nine years ago, the Railway Benevolent +Association. I may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years +ago, that this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the +banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel +bound individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done +before, and to ask whether there is any just cause or impediment why +these two parties—the institution and the public—should not be joined +together in holy charity. As I understand the society, its objects are +five-fold—first, to guarantee annuities which, it is always to be +observed, is paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that those +annuities may be secure and safe—annual pensions, varying from £10 to +£25, to distressed railway officers and servants incapacitated by age, +sickness, or accident; secondly, to guarantee small pensions to +distressed widows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; +fourthly, to provide temporary relief for all those classes till lasting +relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large for the purpose; +lastly, to induce railway officers and servants to assure their lives in +some well-established office by sub-dividing the payment of the premiums +into small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of +£10 per cent. on the amount assured from the funds of the institution. + +This is the society we are met to assist—simple, sympathetic, practical, +easy, sensible, unpretending. The number of its members is large, and +rapidly on the increase: they number 12,000; the amount of invested +capital is very nearly £15,000; it has done a world of good and a world +of work in these first nine years of its life; and yet I am proud to say +that the annual cost of the maintenance of the institution is no more +than £250. And now if you do not know all about it in a small compass, +either I do not know all about it myself, or the fault must be in my +“packing.” + +One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to what +it wants. Well, it wants to do more good, and it cannot possibly do more +good until it has more money. It cannot safely, and therefore it cannot +honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until it grows +richer, and it cannot grow rich enough for its laudable purpose by its +own unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. The means of +these railway officers and servants are far too limited. Even if they +were helped to the utmost by the great railway companies, their means +would still be too limited; even if they were helped—and I hope they +shortly will be—by some of the great corporations of this country, whom +railways have done so much to enrich. These railway officers and +servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, can +no more do without the help of the great public, than the great public, +on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without them. Therefore, +I desire to ask the public whether the servants of the great +railways—who, in fact, are their servants, their ready, zealous, +faithful, hard-working servants—whether they have not established, +whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim to liberal +remembrance. + +Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a story once told me +by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have a certain +application. My friend was an American sea-captain, and, therefore, it +is quite unnecessary to say his story was quite true. He was captain and +part owner of a large American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out, +in exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one beautiful +young lady, and ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen. Light winds +or dead calms prevailing, the voyage was slow. They had made half their +distance when the ten young gentlemen were all madly in love with the +beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among +the rivals seemed imminent pending the young lady’s decision. On this +extremity the beautiful young lady confided in my friend the captain, who +gave her discreet advice. He said: “If your affections are disengaged, +take that one of the young gentlemen whom you like the best and settle +the question.” To this the beautiful young lady made reply, “I cannot do +that because I like them all equally well.” My friend, who was a man of +resource, hit upon this ingenious expedient, said he, “To-morrow morning +at mid-day, when lunch is announced, do you plunge bodily overboard, head +foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to rescue you, and take the one +of the ten who rushes to your rescue, and then you can afterwards have +him.” The beautiful young lady highly approved, and did accordingly. +But after she plunged in, nine out of the ten more or less beautiful +young gentlemen plunged in after her; and the tenth remained and shed +tears, looking over the side of the vessel. They were all picked up, and +restored dripping to the deck. The beautiful young lady upon seeing them +said, “What am I to do? See what a plight they are in. How can I +possibly choose, because every one of them is equally wet?” Then said my +friend the captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, “Take the dry one.” +I am sorry to say that she did so, and they lived happy ever afterwards. + +Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse my +friend the captain’s anecdote, and I entreat the public in looking about +to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to give each his hand +with something in it, and not award a dry hand to the industrious railway +servant who is always at his back. And I would ask any one with a doubt +upon this subject to consider what his experience of the railway servant +is from the time of his departure to his arrival at his destination. I +know what mine is. Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman’s dress, +scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of +instinct, binding up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, +counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs—mostly +very complicated—and sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look +around—there he is, in a station-master’s uniform, directing and +overseeing, with the head of a general, and with the courteous manners of +a gentleman; and then there is the handsome figure of the guard, who +inspires confidence in timid passengers. I glide out of the station, and +there he is again with his flags in his hand at his post in the open +country, at the level crossing, at the cutting, at the tunnel mouth, and +at every station on the road until our destination is reached. In +regard, therefore, to the railway servants with whom we do come into +contact, we may surely have some natural sympathy, and it is on their +behalf that I this night appeal to you. I beg now to propose “Success to +the Railway Benevolent Society.” + + + + +XXXV. +LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867. + + +[On presiding at a public Meeting of the Printers’ Readers, held at the +Salisbury Hotel, on the above date, Mr. Dickens said:—] + +THAT as the meeting was convened, not to hear him, but to hear a +statement of facts and figures very nearly affecting the personal +interests of the great majority of those present, his preface to the +proceedings need be very brief. Of the details of the question he knew, +of his own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he had consented to occupy +the chair on that occasion at the request of the London Association of +Correctors of the Press for two reasons—first, because he thought that +openness and publicity in such cases were a very wholesome example very +much needed at this time, and were highly becoming to a body of men +associated with that great public safeguard—the Press; secondly, because +he knew from some slight practical experience, what the duties of +correctors of the press were, and how their duties were usually +discharged; and he could testify, and did testify, that they were not +mechanical, that they were not mere matters of manipulation and routine; +but that they required from those who performed them much natural +intelligence, much super-added cultivation, readiness of reference, +quickness of resource, an excellent memory, and a clear understanding. +He most gratefully acknowledged that he had never gone through the sheets +of any book that he had written, without having presented to him by the +correctors of the press something that he had overlooked, some slight +inconsistency into which he had fallen, some little lapse he had made—in +short, without having set down in black and white some unquestionable +indication that he had been closely followed through the work by a +patient and trained mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. And in this +declaration he had not the slightest doubt that the great body of his +brother and sister writers would, as a plain act of justice, readily +concur. For these plain reasons he was there; and being there he begged +to assure them that every one present—that every speaker—would have a +patient hearing, whatever his opinions might be. + + * * * * * + +[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote of thanks +to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair on the occasion.] + +Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed the belief that their +very calm and temperate proceedings would finally result in the +establishment of relations of perfect amity between the employers and the +employed, and consequently conduce to the general welfare of both. + + + + +XXXVI. +LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867. + + +[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary farewell +dinner was given to Mr. Dickens at the Freemasons’ Tavern on the occasion +of his revisiting the United States of America. Lord Lytton officiated +as chairman, and proposed as a toast—“A Prosperous Voyage, Health, and +Long Life to our Illustrious Guest and Countryman, Charles Dickens”. The +toast was drunk with all the honours, and one cheer more. Mr. Dickens +then rose, and spoke as follows:] + +NO thanks that I can offer you can express my sense of my reception by +this great assemblage, or can in the least suggest to you how deep the +glowing words of my friend the chairman, and your acceptance of them, +have sunk into my heart. But both combined have so greatly shaken the +composure which I am used to command before an audience, that I hope you +may observe in me some traces of an eloquence more expressive than the +richest words. To say that I am fervently grateful to you is to say +nothing; to say that I can never forget this beautiful sight, is to say +nothing; to say that it brings upon me a rush of emotion not only in the +present, but in the thought of its remembrance in the future by those who +are dearest to me, is to say nothing; but to feel all this for the +moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio says of the +wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, that—“’Tis not so +deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, ’twill +serve.” {220} I may say of the wound in my breast, newly dealt to me by +the hands of my friends, that it is deeper than the soundless sea, and +wider than the whole Catholic Church. I may safely add that it has for +the moment almost stricken me dumb. I should be more than human, and I +assure you I am very human indeed, if I could look around upon this +brilliant representative company and not feel greatly thrilled and +stirred by the presence of so many brother artists, not only in +literature, but also in the sister arts, especially painting, among whose +professors living and unhappily dead, are many of my oldest and best +friends. I hope that I may, without presumption, regard this thronging +of my brothers around me as a testimony on their part that they believe +that the cause of art generally has been safe in my keeping, and that it +has never been falsely dealt with by me. Your resounding cheers just now +would have been but so many cruel reproaches to me if I could not here +declare that, from the earliest days of my career down to this proud +night, I have always tried to be true to my calling. Never unduly to +assert it, on the one hand, and never, on any pretence or consideration, +to permit it to be patronized in my person, has been the steady endeavour +of my life; and I have occasionally been vain enough to hope that I may +leave its social position in England better than I found it. Similarly, +and equally I hope without presumption, I trust that I may take this +general representation of the public here, through so many orders, +pursuits, and degrees, as a token that the public believe that, with a +host of imperfections and shortcomings on my head, I have as a writer, in +my soul and conscience, tried to be as true to them as they have ever +been true to me. And here, in reference to the inner circle of the arts +and the outer circle of the public, I feel it a duty to-night to offer +two remarks. I have in my duty at odd times heard a great deal about +literary sets and cliques, and coteries and barriers; about keeping this +man up, and keeping that man down; about sworn disciples and sworn +unbelievers, and mutual admiration societies, and I know not what other +dragons in the upward path. I began to tread it when I was very young, +without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, or +adviser, and I am bound to put in evidence in this place that I never +lighted on these dragons yet. So have I heard in my day, at divers other +odd times, much generally to the effect that the English people have +little or no love of art for its own sake, and that they do not greatly +care to acknowledge or do honour to the artist. My own experience has +uniformly been exactly the reverse. I can say that of my countrymen, +though I cannot say that of my country. + +And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me this great +honour, the story of my going again to America is very easily and briefly +told. Since I was there before a vast and entirely new generation has +arisen in the United States. Since I was there before most of the best +known of my books have been written and published; the new generation and +the books have come together and have kept together, until at length +numbers of those who have so widely and constantly read me; naturally +desiring a little variety in the relationship between us, have expressed +a strong wish that I should read myself. This wish, at first conveyed to +me through public channels and business channels, has gradually become +enforced by an immense accumulation of letters from individuals and +associations of individuals, all expressing in the same hearty, homely, +cordial unaffected way, a kind of personal interest in me—I had almost +said a kind of personal affection for me, which I am sure you would agree +with me it would be dull insensibility on my part not to prize. Little +by little this pressure has become so great that, although, as Charles +Lamb says, my household gods strike a terribly deep root, I have torn +them from their places, and this day week, at this hour, shall be upon +the sea. You will readily conceive that I am inspired besides by a +natural desire to see for myself the astonishing change and progress of a +quarter of a century over there, to grasp the hands of many faithful +friends whom I left there, to see the faces of the multitude of new +friends upon whom I have never looked, and last, not least, to use my +best endeavour to lay down a third cable of intercommunication and +alliance between the old world and the new. Twelve years ago, when +Heaven knows I little thought I should ever be bound upon the voyage +which now lies before me, I wrote in that form of my writings which +obtains by far the most extensive circulation, these words of the +American nation:—“I know full well, whatever little motes my beamy eyes +may have descried in theirs, that they are a kind, large-hearted, +generous, and great people.” In that faith I am going to see them again; +in that faith I shall, please God, return from them in the spring; in +that same faith to live and to die. I told you in the beginning that I +could not thank you enough, and Heaven knows I have most thoroughly kept +my word. If I may quote one other short sentence from myself, let it +imply all that I have left unsaid, and yet most deeply feel. Let it, +putting a girdle round the earth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic +at once in this moment, and say, as Tiny Tim observes, “God bless us +every one.” + + + + +XXXVII. +BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868. + + +[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, on the above date. On his +entrance a surprise awaited him. His reading-stand had been decorated +with flowers and palm-leaves by some of the ladies of the city. He +acknowledged this graceful tribute in the following words:—“Before +allowing Dr. Marigold to tell his story in his own peculiar way, I kiss +the kind, fair hands unknown, which have so beautifully decorated my +table this evening.” After the Reading, Mr. Dickens attempted in vain to +retire. Persistent hands demanded “one word more.” Returning to his +desk, pale, with a tear in his eye, that found its way to his voice, he +spoke as follows:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—My gracious and generous welcome in America, which +can never be obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My departure +begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never until this moment +really felt that I am going away. In this brief life of ours, it is sad +to do almost anything for the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, +although my face will so soon be turned towards my native land, and to +all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration with me that in a +very few moments from this time, this brilliant hall and all that it +contains, will fade from my view—for ever more. But it is my consolation +that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the ready +response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have made this place +delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon it that that spirit +will abide with me as long as I have sense and sentiment left. + +I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships that +have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved spot to me, +for such private references have no business in this public place. I say +it purely in remembrance of, and in homage to, the great public heart +before me. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and most +affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell. + + + + +XXXVIII. +NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1863. + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained at a farewell dinner at +Delmonico’s Hotel, previous to his return to England. Two hundred +gentlemen sat down to it; Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. In +acknowledgment of the toast of his health, proposed by the chairman, Mr. +Dickens rose and said:—] + +GENTLEMEN,—I cannot do better than take my cue to from your distinguished +president, and refer in my first remarks to his remarks in connexion with +the old, natural, association between you and me. When I received an +invitation from a private association of working members of the press of +New York to dine with them to-day, I accepted that compliment in grateful +remembrance of a calling that was once my own, and in loyal sympathy +towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quieted. To the +wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, +I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons will hereafter testify +of their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder by which +he rose. If it were otherwise, I should have but a very poor opinion of +their father, which, perhaps, upon the whole, I have not. Hence, +gentlemen, under any circumstances, this company would have been +exceptionally interesting and gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed +that, like the fairies’ pavilion in the “Arabian Nights,” it would be but +a mere handful, and I find it turn out, like the same elastic pavilion, +capable of comprehending a multitude, so much the more proud am I of the +honour of being your guest; for you will readily believe that the more +widely representative of the press in America my entertainers are, the +more I must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments towards me of +that vast institution. + +Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, and I +have for upwards of four hard winter months so contended against what I +have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was “a true American catarrh +”—a possession which I have throughout highly appreciated, though I might +have preferred to be naturalised by any other outward and visible signs—I +say, gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard, that I might +have been contented with troubling you no further from my present +standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, +not only here but on every suitable occasion whatsoever and wheresoever, +to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, +and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and +magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing +changes that I have seen around me on every side—changes moral, changes +physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in +the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost +out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes +in the press, without whose advancement no advancement can be made +anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in +five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had +nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct when I was here +first. + +And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I +landed here last November, observed a strict silence, though tempted +sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good +leave, take you into my confidence now. Even the press, being human, may +be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have in +one or two rare instances known its information to be not perfectly +accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have now and again been +more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself than by any +printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence. +Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past +been collecting materials for and hammering away at a new book on America +have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has been perfectly +well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that I +positively declared that no consideration on earth should induce me to +write one. But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this +is the confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in +my own person, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony +to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at to-night. +Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally +with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, +delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with +unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the +nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health. This testimony, +so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in +my books, I shall cause to be re-published, as an appendix to every copy +of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this +I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but +because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour. + +Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest in +America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural one; +but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. I was asked in +this very city, about last Christmas time, whether an American was not at +some disadvantage in England as a foreigner. The notion of an American +being regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his ever being +thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly incongruous +and absurd to me, that my gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered. +As soon as it was restored, I said that for years and years past I hoped +I had had as many American friends and had received as many American +visitors as almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying +experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be +an American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition +anywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenly spoke out two, +one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art, who, finding +himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a certain historical +English castle, famous for its pictures, was refused admission there, +according to the strict rules of the establishment on that day, but who, +on merely representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, +had, not to say the picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his +immediate disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London, and +having a great desire to see the famous reading-room of the British +Museum, was assured by the English family with whom she stayed that it +was unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week, +and she had only three days there. Upon that lady’s going to the Museum, +as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an American +lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am unwillingly bound +to add that she certainly was young and exceedingly pretty. Still, the +porter of that institution is of an obese habit, and, according to the +best of my observation of him, not very impressible. + +Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance to you +that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to do, to be in +England as faithful to America as to England herself, has no previous +conceptions to contend against. Points of difference there have been, +points of difference there are, points of difference there probably +always will be between the two great peoples. But broadcast in England +is sown the sentiment that those two peoples are essentially one, and +that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great Anglo-Saxon race, to +which our president has referred, and all its great achievements before +the world. And if I know anything of my countrymen—and they give me +credit for knowing something—if I know anything of my countrymen, +gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those Stars +and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies except its own. +If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation towards America, they +begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended that lovers should begin, +with “a little aversion,” but with a great liking and a profound respect; +and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment, or the little +official passion, or the little official policy now, or then, or here, or +there, may be, take my word for it, that the first enduring, great, +popular consideration in England is a generous construction of justice. + +Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do +believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides, there +cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for this globe to +be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, and +abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it should present the +spectacle of these two great nations, each of which has, in its own way +and hour, striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, ever again +being arrayed the one against the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your +president enough or you enough for your kind reception of my health, and +of my poor remarks, but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost +fervour of which my soul is capable. + + + + +XXXIX. +NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868. + + +[Mr. Dickens’s last Reading in the United States was given at the +Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was about to +retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came forward +and spoke thus:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—The shadow of one word has impended over me this +evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must fall. It +is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is not measured by +their length, and two much shorter words express the round of our human +existence. When I was reading “David Copperfield” a few evenings since, +I felt there was more than usual significance in the words of Peggotty, +“My future life lies over the sea.” And when I closed this book just +now, I felt most keenly that I was shortly to establish such an _alibi_ +as would have satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which +have been set up between us, while they have involved for me something +more than mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the +readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment. + +Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, however, that +you will not pass from my mind. I shall often realise you as I see you +now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English summer weather. +I shall never recall you as a mere public audience, but rather as a host +of personal friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, +and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God +bless you, and God bless the land in which I leave you. + + + + +XL. +LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869. + + +[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet held in +his honour at St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, after his health had been +proposed by Lord Dufferin.] + +MR. MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, although I have been so well accustomed +of late to the sound of my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear it +with perfect composure, the occasion is, believe me, very, very different +in respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson +once confided to me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from +hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be +when he was quite alone—so you can form no conception, from the specimen +before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and again +in some of the innermost moments of my future life. Often and often, +then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant scene, and will +re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I, faithful to this place in its +present aspect, will observe it exactly as it stands—not one man’s seat +empty, not one woman’s fair face absent, while life and memory abide by +me. + +Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so eloquently +uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful and gracious +allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble +city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment’s untrustworthy +enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock of experience +that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, +systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and to +try to express myself to them through the breath of life, Liverpool stood +foremost among the great places out of London to which I looked with +eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this? Not merely because of +the reputation of its citizens for generous estimation of the arts; not +merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of its great +self-educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had +been a home to me since the well-remembered day when its blessed roofs +and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion of my first +sailing away to see my generous friends across the Atlantic twenty-seven +years ago. Not for one of those considerations, but because it had been +my happiness to have a public opportunity of testing the spirit of its +people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation +of Shakespeare’s house. On another occasion I had ventured to address +Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles. On still +another occasion I had addressed it in the cause of the brotherhood and +sisterhood of letters and the kindred arts, and on each and all the +response had been unsurpassably spontaneous, open-handed, and munificent. + +Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a small +illustration of my present position from my own peculiar craft, I would +say that there is this objection in writing fiction to giving a story an +autobiographical form, that through whatever dangers the narrator may +pass, it is clear unfortunately to the reader beforehand that he must +have come through them somehow else he could not have lived to tell the +tale. Now, in speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such +honours as those with which you have enriched me, there is this singular +difficulty in the way of returning thanks, that the speaker must +infallibly come back to himself through whatever oratorical disasters he +may languish on the road. Let me, then, take the plainer and simpler +middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let +me assure you that whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by +word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved in +the acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly refined +which has seven times passed the furnace, so a fancy may be said to +become more and more refined each time it passes through the human heart. +You have, and you know you have, brought to the consideration of me that +quality in yourselves without which I should but have beaten the air. +Your earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, +and your tears have overflowed my eyes. All that I can claim for myself +in establishing the relations which exist between us is constant fidelity +to hard work. My literary fellows about me, of whom I am so proud to see +so many, know very well how true it is in all art that what seems the +easiest done is oftentimes the most difficult to do, and that the +smallest truth may come of the greatest pains—much, as it occurred to me +at Manchester the other day, as the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth’s +measuring machine, comes at last, of Heaven and Manchester and its mayor +only know how much hammering—my companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, +and I think it only right the public should know too, that in our careful +toil and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence—not in any +little gifts, misused by fits and starts—lies our highest duty at once to +our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to you. + +Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to clear +myself of two very unexpected accusations. The first is a most singular +charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord Houghton, that I have +been somewhat unconscious of the merits of the House of Lords. Now, +ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have had some few not altogether +obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly, seeing that I had +some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer +lately known in England by the name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I +regard with some admiration and affection another obscure peer wholly +unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have +had for some years some slight admiration of the extraordinary judicial +properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice +popularly known by the name of Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no +man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, whom I love +more in his private capacity, or from whom I have received more +remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than another +obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into +consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend’s accusation. When +I asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to +make this charge, he replied that he had never forgotten the days of Lord +Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all. Because it +is a remarkable fact that in the days when that depreciative and +profoundly unnatural character was invented there was no Lord Houghton in +the House of Lords. And there was in the House of Commons a rather +indifferent member called Richard Monckton Milnes. + +Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close with the +other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious, and I may be +allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a dozen plain words. +When I first took literature as my profession in England, I calmly +resolved within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, +literature should be my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time +that it was not so well understood in England as it was in other +countries that literature was a dignified profession, by which any man +might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself that in my person +literature should stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and +there is no consideration on earth which would induce me to break that +bargain. + +Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great +kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have drunk my +health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it had not so +unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost my heart +at between half-past six and half-past seven to-night. + + + + +THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE. +SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30, 1869. + + +[The International University Boat Race having taken place on August 27, +the London Rowing Club invited the Crews to a Dinner at the Crystal +Palace on the following Monday. The dinner was followed by a grand +display of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in proposing the health of the +Crews, made the following speech:] + +GENTLEMEN, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as about +to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spirt and then +dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the London Rowing +Club on this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in the name of the +other invited visitors present—always excepting the distinguished guests +who are the cause of our meeting—to thank the president for the modesty +and the courtesy with which he has deputed to one of us the most +agreeable part of his evening’s duty. It is the more graceful in him to +do this because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it +himself, as this is a case of all others in which it is according to good +taste and the very principles of things that the great social vice, +speech-making, should hide it diminished head before the great social +virtue action. However, there is an ancient story of a lady who threw +her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant lover +to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferring from the +action the worth of the lady, risked his life for the glove, and then +threw it rightly in her face as a token of his eternal adieu. {239} I +take up the President’s glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much +higher worth, and of my real interest in the cause in which it was thrown +down, and I now profess my readiness to do even injustice to the duty +which he has assigned me. + +Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in the +United States within a short time before my last visit to that hospitable +land, containing ninety-five biographies of young men, for the most part +well-born and well nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits of +life, who, when the flag of their country waved them from those quiet +paths in which they were seeking distinction of various kinds, took arms +in the dread civil war which elicited so much bravery on both sides, and +died in the defence of their country. These great spirits displayed +extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, of +military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great masses of men, +in surprising readiness of self-resource for the general good, in +humanely treating the sick and the wounded, and in winning to themselves +a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had all risen +to be distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; +they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a serene +cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; and they had +all been educated in one school—Harvard University. + +Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants of our +forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought +against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. +I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less +true to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not +recognise in her boat’s crew the leaven of her soldiers, and who does not +feel that she has now a greater right than ever to be proud of her sons, +and take these sons to her breast when they return with resounding +acclamations? It is related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told +a lady who foolishly protested that she would like to see a great victory +that there was only one thing worse than a great victory, and that was a +great defeat. + +But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term a great +defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of daring fellows who make a +preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles to meet great +conquerors on their own domain—who do not want the stimulus of friends +and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear land in the +shouts and cheers of another—and who strive to the last with a desperate +tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather in the proudest +cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me that such a defeat is a great, noble +part of a manly, wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essence +and life-blood of such a defeat to become at last sure victory. + +Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to propose, +and you know equally well that in thus glancing first towards our friends +of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive +courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers from a distance—a courtesy +extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, to any imaginable limits except +allowing them to take the first place in last Friday’s match, if they +could by any human and honourable means be kept in the second. I will +not avail myself of the opportunity provided for me by the absence of the +greater part of the Oxford crew—indeed, of all but one, and that, its +most modest and devoted member—I will not avail myself of the golden +opportunity considerately provided for me to say a great deal in honour +of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who attends here attends +under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if he were less in +earnest his filial affection could not possibly allow him to be here. + +It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you, that I +should say here, and now, that we all unite with one accord in regarding +the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England—and that we should +consider it very weak indeed to set anything short of England’s very best +in opposition to or competition with America; though it certainly must be +confessed—I am bound in common justice and honour to admit it—it must be +confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented +gentleman remark—last Friday night, about ten o’clock, when he was +baiting a very small horse in the Strand—he was one of eleven with pipes +in a chaise cart—I say it must be admitted in disparagement of the Oxford +men on the authority of this gentleman, that they have won so often that +they could afford to lose a little now, and that “they ought to do it, +but they won’t.” + +Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor testimony +of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant spectacle which they +presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure I express not +only your feeling, and my feeling, and the feeling of the Blue, but also +the feeling of the whole people of England, when I cordially give them +welcome to our English waters and English ground, and also bid them “God +speed” in their voyage home. As the greater includes the less, and the +sea holds the river, so I think it is no very bold augury to predict that +in the friendly contests yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both +sides of the Atlantic—there are great river triumphs for Harvard +University yet in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English portion of this +audience that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an +undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a common seaman two +years before the mast, {242} and who wrote about the best sea book in the +English tongue. Remember that it was one of those young American +gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across the Atlantic in +mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with the men who +believed in him. + +And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, +I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a distance that the +utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received on their return home +will find a ready echo in every corner of England—and further, that none +of their immediate countrymen—I use the qualifying term immediate, for we +are, as our president said, fellow countrymen, thank God—that none of +their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what they did in this +great race, can be more thoroughly imbued with a sense of their +indomitable courage and their high deserts than are their rivals and +their hosts to-night. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink the +crews of Harvard and Oxford University, and I beg to couple with that +toast the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan. + + + + +XLII. +BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869. + + +[Inaugural Address on the opening of the Winter Session of the Birmingham +and Midland Institute. + +One who was present during the delivery of the following speech, informs +the editor that “no note of any kind was referred to by Mr. +Dickens—except the Quotation from Sydney Smith. The address, evidently +carefully prepared, was delivered without a single pause, in Mr. +Dickens’s best manner, and was a very great success.”] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—We often hear of our common country that it is an +over-populated one, that it is an over-pauperized one, that it is an +over-colonizing one, and that it is an over-taxed one. Now, I entertain, +especially of late times, the heretical belief that it is an over-talked +one, and that there is a deal of public speech-making going about in +various directions which might be advantageously dispensed with. If I +were free to act upon this conviction, as president for the time being of +the great institution so numerously represented here, I should +immediately and at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of +a highly edifying, because of a very exemplary character. But I happen +to be the institution’s willing servant, not its imperious master, and it +exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech—not to say brazen—from +whomsoever it exalts to my high office. Some African tribes—not to draw +the comparison disrespectfully—some savage African tribes, when they make +a king require him perhaps to achieve an exhausting foot-race under the +stimulus of considerable popular prodding and goading, or perhaps to be +severely and experimentally knocked about the head by his Privy Council, +or perhaps to be dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to +drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash—at all +events, to undergo some purifying ordeal in presence of his admiring +subjects. + +I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned by +your constituted authorities that whatever I might happen to say here +to-night would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance upon a new +term of study by the members of your various classes; for, besides that, +the phrase is something high-sounding for my taste, I avow that I do look +forward to that blessed time when every man shall inaugurate his own work +for himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then have inaugurated a +new era indeed, and one in which the Lord’s Prayer will become a +fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering, however, that you may +call anything by any name without in the least changing its +nature—bethinking myself that you may, if you be so minded, call a +butterfly a buffalo, without advancing a hair’s breadth towards making it +one—I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to the very +homely intention I had previously formed. This was merely to tell you, +the members, students, and friends of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute—firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know, (this is a very +popular oratorical theme); secondly, what your institution has done; and, +thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its President for the time being, +remains for it to do and not to do. + +Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You cannot need +from me any oratorical declamation concerning the abstract advantages of +knowledge or the beauties of self-improvement. If you had any such +requirement you would not be here. I conceive that you are here because +you have become thoroughly penetrated with such principles, either in +your own persons or in the persons of some striving fellow-creatures, on +whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I conceive that you are +here because you feel the welfare of the great chiefly adult educational +establishment, whose doors stand really open to all sorts and conditions +of people, to be inseparable from the best welfare of your great town and +its neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say +that we all—every one of us here—perfectly well know that the benefits of +such an establishment must extend far beyond the limits of this midland +county—its fires and smoke,—and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole +community, I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage, +in his ninth “Bridgewater Treatise,” that a mere spoken word—a single +articulated syllable thrown into the air—may go on reverberating through +illimitable space for ever and for ever, seeing that there is no rim +against which it can strike—no boundary at which it can possibly arrive. +Similarly it may be said—not as an ingenious speculation, but as a +stedfast and absolute fact—that human calculation cannot limit the +influence of one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, modestly +possessed, and faithfully used. + +As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in the +universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of which myriads +of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain that every +man, however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, +is one of a group of men impressible for good, and impressible for evil, +and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he cannot really +improve himself without in some degree improving other men. And observe, +this is especially the case when he has improved himself in the teeth of +adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to a neglected or an +ill-taught youth, in the few daily hours remaining to him after ten or +twelve hours’ labour, in the few pauses and intervals of a life of toil; +for then his fellows and companions have assurance that he can have known +no favouring conditions, and that they can do what he has done, in +wresting some enlightenment and self-respect from what Lord Lytton finely +calls— + + “Those twin gaolers of the daring heart, + Low birth and iron fortune.” + +As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your own +observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there can be very few +persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who would contest the +position that the more cultivated the employed the better for the +employer, and the more cultivated the employer the better for the +employed; therefore, my references to what you do not want to know shall +here cease and determine. + +Next, with reference to what your institution has done on my summary, +which shall be as concise and as correct as my information and my +remembrance of it may render possible, I desire to lay emphatic stress. +Your institution, sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen +study together, has outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its +2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of its +vigorous vitality that of its industrial-students almost half are +artisans in the receipt of weekly wages. I think I am correct in saying +that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen’s sons. +I note with particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the +gentler sex, without whom no institution whatever can truly claim to be +either a civilising or a civilised one. The increased attendance at your +educational classes is always greatest on the part of the artisans—the +class within my experience the least reached in any similar institutions +elsewhere, and whose name is the oftenest and the most constantly taken +in vain. But it is specially reached here, not improbably because it is, +as it should be, specially addressed in the foundation of the industrial +department, in the allotment of the direction of the society’s affairs, +and in the establishment of what are called its penny classes—a bold, +and, I am happy to say, a triumphantly successful experiment, which +enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects +directly bearing upon his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness, as +arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical geography, and +singing, on payment of the astoundingly low fee of a single penny every +time he attends the class. I beg emphatically to say that I look upon +this as one of the most remarkable schemes ever devised for the +educational behoof of the artisan, and if your institution had done +nothing else in all its life, I would take my stand by it on its having +done this. + +Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has its general +department, offering all the advantages of a first-class literary +institution. It has its reading-rooms, its library, its chemical +laboratory, its museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and its +long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive interest, +delivered by lecturers of the highest qualifications. Very well. But it +may be asked, what are the practical results of all these appliances? +Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that your institution should have +educated those who are now its teachers. That would be a very remarkable +fact. Supposing, besides, it should, so to speak, have educated +education all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers +into many and divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared +exclusively in its laboratory, should be presently snapped up for the +laboratory of the great and famous hospitals. Suppose that in nine years +its industrial students should have carried off a round dozen of the much +competed for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the Government +department, besides two local prizes originating in the generosity of a +Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council, having it in trust to +find an artisan well fit to receive the Whitworth prizes, should find him +here. Suppose that one of the industrial students should turn his +chemical studies to the practical account of extracting gold from waste +colour water, and of taking it into custody, in the very act of running +away with hundreds of pounds down the town drains. Suppose another +should perceive in his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss +with his master’s until then inscrutably defective furnace, and should go +straight—to the great annual saving of that master—and put it right. +Supposing another should puzzle out the means, until then quite unknown +in England, of making a certain description of coloured glass. Supposing +another should qualify himself to vanquish one by one, as they daily +arise, all the little difficulties incidental to his calling as an +electro-plater, and should be applied to by his companions in the shop in +all emergencies under the name of the “Encyclopædia.” Suppose a long +procession of such cases, and then consider that these are not +suppositions at all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating in the +one special and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, +every one of the institution’s industrial students who have taken its +prizes within ten years, have since climbed to higher situations in their +way of life. + +As to the extent to which the institution encourages the artisan to +think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the little shackling +prejudices and observances perchance existing in his trade when they will +not bear the test of inquiry, that is only to be equalled by the extent +to which it encourages him to feel. There is a certain tone of modest +manliness pervading all the little facts which I have looked through +which I found remarkably impressive. The decided objection on the part +of industrial students to attend classes in their working clothes, +breathes this tone, as being a graceful and at the same time perfectly +independent recognition of the place and of one another. And this tone +is admirably illustrated in a different way, in the case of a poor +bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses through the illness of his +family, and having consequently been obliged to part with his best +clothes, and being therefore missed from his classes, in which he had +been noticed as a very hard worker, was persuaded to attend them in his +working clothes. He replied, “No, it was not possible. It must not be +thought of. It must not come into question for a moment. It would be +supposed, or it might be thought, that he did it to attract attention.” +And the same man being offered by one of the officers a loan of money to +enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the +ground that he came to the institution to learn and to know better how to +help himself, not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help from any man. +Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the institution, because +it is no isolated instance, but is a fair and honourable sample of the +spirit of the place, and as such I put it at the conclusion—though last +certainly not least—of my references to what your institution has +indubitably done. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble +opinion of the evanescent officer before you, remains for the institution +to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it towards the closing pages of +his grand history of the French Revolution, “This we are now with due +brevity to glance at; and then courage, oh listener, I see land!” {250} +I earnestly hope—and I firmly believe—that your institution will do +henceforth as it has done hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and +believe that it will know among its members no distinction of persons, +creed, or party, but that it will conserve its place of assemblage as a +high, pure ground, on which all such considerations shall merge into the +one universal, heaven-sent aspiration of the human soul to be wiser and +better. I hope and believe that it will always be expansive and elastic; +for ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging the circle of its +members, of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater and +greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition to stand still +than time does, or life does, or the seasons do. And above all things, I +hope, and I feel confident from its antecedents, that it will never allow +any consideration on the face of the earth to induce it to patronise or +to be patronised, for I verily believe that the bestowal and receipt of +patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has done +more to prevent really good objects, and to lower really high character, +than the utmost efforts of the narrowest antagonism could have effected +in twice the time. + +I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland Institute +will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the timid opponents of +intellectual progress; but in this connexion generally I cannot forbear +from offering a remark which is much upon my mind. It is commonly +assumed—much too commonly—that this age is a material age, and that a +material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained lately to see +this assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for which I have +a high respect, and desire to have a higher. I am afraid that by dint of +constantly being reiterated, and reiterated without protest, this +assumption—which I take leave altogether to deny—may be accepted by the +more unthinking part of the public as unquestionably true; just as +caricaturists and painters, professedly making a portrait of some public +man, which was not in the least like him to begin with, have gone on +repeating and repeating it until the public came to believe that it must +be exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, and really have +at last, in the fulness of time, grown almost disposed to resent upon him +their tardy discovery—really to resent upon him their late discovery—that +he was not like it. I confess, standing here in this responsible +situation, that I do not understand this much-used and much-abused +phrase—the “material age.” I cannot comprehend—if anybody can I very +much doubt—its logical signification. For instance, has electricity +become more material in the mind of any sane or moderately insane man, +woman, or child, because of the discovery that in the good providence of +God it could be made available for the service and use of man to an +immeasurably greater extent than for his destruction? Do I make a more +material journey to the bed-side of my dying parent or my dying child +when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, than when I +travel thither at the rate of six? Rather, in the swiftest case, does +not my agonised heart become over-fraught with gratitude to that Supreme +Beneficence from whom alone could have proceeded the wonderful means of +shortening my suspense? What is the materiality of the cable or the wire +compared with the materiality of the spark? What is the materiality of +certain chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or +release, compared with the materiality of their appointed affinities and +repulsions presented to them from the instant of their creation to the +day of judgment? When did this so-called material age begin? With the +use of clothing; with the discovery of the compass; with the invention of +the art of printing? Surely, it has been a long time about; and which is +the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give +me light, or that flame of gas which will? + +No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived by any +fine, vapid, empty words. The true material age is the stupid Chinese +age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are granted, because +they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently +and humbly sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the mad +braggart defying the lightning and the modern historical picture of +Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he might the more +profoundly study that which was set before him to be studied (or it would +not have been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction +between the much-maligned material sages—material in one sense, I +suppose, but in another very immaterial sages—of the Celestial Empire +school. Consider whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or unnatural, +reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, and +finding myself surrounded by such discovered wonders on every hand, +should sometimes ask myself the question—should put to myself the solemn +consideration—can these things be among those things which might have +been disclosed by divine lips nigh upon two thousand years ago, but that +the people of that time could not bear them? And whether this be so or +no, if I am so surrounded on every hand, is not my moral responsibility +tremendously increased thereby, and with it my intelligence and +submission as a child of Adam and of the dust, before that Shining Source +which equally of all that is granted and all that is withheld holds in +His mighty hands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death. + +To the students of your industrial classes generally I have had it in my +mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two words, +“Courage—Persevere.” This is the motto of a friend and worker. Not +because the eyes of Europe are upon them, for I don’t in the least +believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon them, for I +don’t in the least believe it; not because their doings will be +proclaimed with blast of trumpet at street corners, for no such musical +performances will take place; not because self-improvement is at all +certain to lead to worldly success, but simply because it is good and +right of itself, and because, being so, it does assuredly bring with it +its own resources and its own rewards. I would further commend to them a +very wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding +which was given more than half a century ago by the Rev. Sydney +Smith—wisest and wittiest of the friends I have lost. He says—and he is +speaking, you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of +volunteer students—he says: “There is a piece of foppery which is to be +cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all +sciences and excelling in all arts—chymistry, mathematics, algebra, +dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, and +natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very often +is, ‘Take the Admirable Crichton for your model, I would have you +ignorant of nothing.’ Now,” says he, “my advice, on the contrary, is to +have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order +that you may avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.” + +To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good of my +own life and the life of every eminent man I have ever known. The one +serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every +study and in every pursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention +or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would +never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, +patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness +of penetration, brilliancy in association of ideas—such mental qualities, +like the qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in +_Macbeth_, will not be commanded; but attention, after due term of +submissive service, always will. Like certain plants which the poorest +peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by any one, +and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth flowers and +fruit. I can most truthfully assure you by-the-by, that this eulogium on +attention is so far quite disinterested on my part as that it has not the +least reference whatever to the attention with which you have honoured +me. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect how often +you have probably heard within these walls one of the foremost men, and +certainly one of the very best speakers, if not the very best, in +England. I could not say to myself, when I began just now, in +Shakespeare’s line— + + “I will be BRIGHT and shining gold,” + +but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, “I will be as natural +and easy as I possibly can,” because my heart has all been in my subject, +and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men. I have +said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let +me amend a small omission, and add “and Birmingham women.” This ring I +wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if by rubbing it I +could raise the spirit that was obedient to Aladdin’s ring, I heartily +assure you that my first instruction to that genius on the spot should be +to place himself at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes. + + * * * * * + +[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:—] + +Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that I shall +have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is out, and shall +have the great interest of seeing the faces and touching the bands of the +successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that +anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing of dread which must +inevitably result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily, and I +most sincerely and fervently say to you, “Good night, and God bless you.” +In reference to the appropriate and excellent remarks of Mr. Dixon, I +will now discharge my conscience of my political creed, which is +contained in two articles, and has no reference to any party or persons. +My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my +faith in the People governed is, on the whole, illimitable. + + + + +XLIII. +BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870. + + +[On the evening of the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the +Birmingham and Midland Institute, distributed the prizes and certificates +awarded to the most successful students in the first year. The +proceedings took place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens entered at eight +o’clock, accompanied by the officers of the Institute, and was received +with loud applause. After the lapse of a minute or two, he rose and +said:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—When I last had the honour to preside over a +meeting of the Institution which again brings us together, I took +occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of public speaking which +seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require very little +self-denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; firstly, +because I said my little say that night; and secondly, because we have +definite and highly interesting action before us to-night. We have now +to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by the most +successful competitors in the society’s lists. I say the most +successful, because to-night we should particularly observe, I think, +that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some +victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all +involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and +competition for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of +cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse +to the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers +may be certain that he has still won much—very much—and that he can well +afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have passed him in the +race. + +I have applied the word “rewards” to these prizes, and I do so, not +because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver or gold, but +precisely because they do not. They represent what is above all +price—what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what is one of +the great needs of the human soul—encouraging sympathy. They are an +assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, that +he does not work either neglected or unfriended, and that he is watched, +felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. Such an assurance, conveyed in +the presence of this large assembly, and striking to the breasts of the +recipients that thrill which is inseparable from any great united +utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of +the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a +sensitive spirit can never be forgotten. + +[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of +“Pickwick,” which was received with laugher. Mr. Dickens made some +remarks to the lady in an undertone; and then observed to the audience, +“I have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name.” The prizes having +been distributed, Mr. Dickens made a second brief speech. He said:—] + +The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself of the +delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if the recipients of these +prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform have had the +genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments from my hands that I +have had in placing them in theirs, they are in a true Christian temper +to-night. I have the painful sense upon me, that it is reserved for some +one else to enjoy this great satisfaction of mind next time. It would be +useless for the few short moments longer to disguise the fact that I +happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign +will very soon sit upon my inconstant throne. To-night I abdicate, or, +what is much the same thing in the modern annals of Royalty—I am politely +dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me +to a very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your +permission to say a closing word. + +When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks of your +respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my political faith—or +perhaps I should better say want of faith. It imported that I have very +little confidence in the people who govern us—please to observe “people” +there will be with a small “p,”—but that I have great confidence in the +People whom they govern; please to observe “people” there with a large +“P.” This was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil +intention, I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained. +Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one which I +do see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the +bottom of it—a fiction called the “Circumlocution Office,”—and perhaps +also as the writer of an idle book or two, whose public opinions are not +obscurely stated—perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in +mind Hamlet’s caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo +me. + +Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may be no +mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will re-state +my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, a great +writer, and a great scholar, {259} whose death, unfortunately for +mankind, cut short his “History of Civilization in England:”—“They may +talk as they will about reforms which Government has introduced and +improvements to be expected from legislation, but whoever will take a +wider and more commanding view of human affairs, will soon discover that +such hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly +always the obstructors of society instead of its helpers, and that in the +extremely few cases where their measures have turned out well their +success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, +they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been—as +they always should be—the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes +they are bound to give a public and legal sanction.” + + + + +XLIV. +LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846. {260} + + +[The first anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund +Association was held on the evening of the above date at the London +Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus proposed the +principal toast:] + +GENTLEMEN,—In offering to you a toast which has not as yet been publicly +drunk in any company, it becomes incumbent on me to offer a few words in +explanation: in the first place, premising that the toast will be “The +General Theatrical Fund.” + +The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate to-night, was founded +seven years ago, for the purpose of granting permanent pensions to such +of the _corps dramatique_ as had retired from the stage, either from a +decline in their years or a decay of their powers. Collected within the +scope of its benevolence are all actors and actresses, singers, or +dancers, of five years’ standing in the profession. To relieve their +necessities and to protect them from want is the great end of the +Society, and it is good to know that for seven years the members of it +have steadily, patiently, quietly, and perseveringly pursued this end, +advancing by regular contribution, moneys which many of them could ill +afford, and cheered by no external help or assistance of any kind +whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, but I trust +that we shall establish to-night that its time is out, and that +henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and brilliant career. + +I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were when this +institution was founded, two other institutions existing of a similar +nature—Covent Garden and Drury Lane—both of long standing, both richly +endowed. It cannot, however, be too distinctly understood, that the +present Institution is not in any way adverse to those. How can it be +when it is only a wide and broad extension of all that is most excellent +in the principles on which they are founded? That such an extension was +absolutely necessary was sufficiently proved by the fact that the great +body of the dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by a +membership of either of these institutions; for it was essential, in +order to become a member of the Drury Lane Society, that the applicant, +either he or she, should have been engaged for three consecutive seasons +as a performer. This was afterwards reduced, in the case of Covent +Garden, to a period of two years, but it really is as exclusive one way +as the other, for I need not tell you that Covent Garden is now but a +vision of the past. You might play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic +company and put them all into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely +heard within its walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous +prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. In like manner, Drury Lane +is conducted now with almost a sole view to the opera and ballet, +insomuch that the statue of Shakespeare over the door serves as +emphatically to point out his grave as his bust did in the church of +Stratford-upon-Avon. How can the profession generally hope to qualify +for the Drury Lane or Covent Garden institution, when the oldest and most +distinguished members have been driven from the boards on which they have +earned their reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the +General Theatrical Fund alone extended? + +I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, with +which I have had the honour of being connected at different periods of my +life. At the time those Associations were established, an engagement at +one of those theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful +engagement would last a whole life; but an engagement of two months’ +duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement +just now. It should never be forgotten that when those two funds were +established, the two great theatres were protected by patent, and that at +that time the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation +of the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see around +me could no more belong to the minor theatres of that day than they could +now belong to St. Bartholomew fair. + +As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they have done, so +I honour this for the much greater good it is resolved to do. It is not +because I love them less, but because I love this more—because it +includes more in its operation. + +Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so much +in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win the great prizes, but +who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, and by +consequence bear a part in contributing to our pleasures. We owe them a +debt which we ought to pay. The beds of such men are not of roses, but +of very artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are lives of care and +privation, and hard struggles with very stern realities. It is from +among the poor actors who drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously +like toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful +appetites for steaks,—it is from their ranks that the most triumphant +favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, the greater the +instruction and delight we derive from the rich English drama, the more +we are bound to succour and protect the humblest of those votaries of the +art who add to our instruction and amusement. + +Hazlitt has well said that “There is no class of society whom so many +persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the stage, we +like to meet them in the streets; they almost always recal to us pleasant +associations.” {263} When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon +the stage, let them not be heard no more—but let them be heard sometimes +to say that they are happy in their old age. When they have passed for +the last time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are +all familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and darkness,—but let +them pass into cheerfulness and light—into a contented and happy home. + +This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar with the +English character not to know that it will be effected. When we come +suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn features of a familiar +face—crossing us like the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten—let us +not recal those features with pain, in sad remembrance of what they once +were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or two to meet +it once again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of a moment of +care, who has taught us to sympathize with virtuous grief, cheating us to +tears for sorrows not our own—and we all know how pleasant are such +tears. Let such a face be ever remembered as that of our benefactor and +our friend. + +I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in any +theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some pleasant +association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, out of my varied +experience, I could not remember even one from which I had not brought +some favourable impression, and that, commencing with the period when I +believed the clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets, +and ending with that in which I saw the other night, outside one of the +“Royal Saloons,” a playbill which showed me ships completely rigged, +carrying men, and careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans. And +now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, I +beg to propose that you drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast was +drunk in this toast-drinking city “Prosperity to the General Theatrical +Fund.” + + + + +XLV. +LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847. + + +[On the above evening a Soirée of the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution took +place, at which about 1200 persons were present. The chair was taken by +Mr. Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—Believe me, speaking to you with a most disastrous +cold, which makes my own voice sound very strangely in my ears—that if I +were not gratified and honoured beyond expression by your cordial +welcome, I should have considered the invitation to occupy my present +position in this brilliant assemblage in itself a distinction not easy to +be surpassed. The cause in which we are assembled and the objects we are +met to promote, I take, and always have taken to be, _the_ cause and +_the_ objects involving almost all others that are essential to the +welfare and happiness of mankind. And in a celebration like the present, +commemorating the birth and progress of a great educational +establishment, I recognise a something, not limited to the spectacle of +the moment, beautiful and radiant though it be—not limited even to the +success of the particular establishment in which we are more immediately +interested—but extending from this place and through swarms of toiling +men elsewhere, cheering and stimulating them in the onward, upward path +that lies before us all. Wherever hammers beat, or wherever factory +chimneys smoke, wherever hands are busy, or the clanking of machinery +resounds—wherever, in a word, there are masses of industrious human +beings whom their wise Creator did not see fit to constitute all body, +but into each and every one of whom He breathed a mind—there, I would +fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is felt from our +collective pulse now beating in this Hall. + +Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at the report of your +Institution for the present year sent to me by your respected +President—whom I cannot help feeling it, by-the-bye, a kind of crime to +depose, even thus peacefully, and for so short a time—I say, glancing +over this report, I found one statement of fact in the very opening which +gave me an uncommon satisfaction. It is, that a great number of the +members and subscribers are among that class of persons for whose +advantage Mechanics’ Institutions were originated, namely, persons +receiving weekly wages. This circumstance gives me the greatest delight. +I am sure that no better testimony could be borne to the merits and +usefulness of this Institution, and that no better guarantee could be +given for its continued prosperity and advancement. + +To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, there may yet +reappear now and then the spectral shadow of a certain dead and buried +opposition; but before the light of a steady trust in them on the part of +the general people, bearing testimony to the virtuous influences of such +Institutions by their own intelligence and conduct, the ghost will melt +away like early vapour from the ground. Fear of such Institutions as +these! We have heard people sometimes speak with jealousy of them,—with +distrust of them! Imagine here, on either hand, two great towns like +Leeds, full of busy men, all of them feeling necessarily, and some of +them heavily, the burdens and inequalities inseparable from civilized +society. In this town there is ignorance, dense and dark; in that town, +education—the best of education; that which the grown man from day to day +and year to year furnishes for himself and maintains for himself, and in +right of which his education goes on all his life, instead of leaving +off, complacently, just when he begins to live in the social system. +Now, which of these two towns has a good man, or a good cause, reason to +distrust and dread? “The educated one,” does some timid politician, with +a marvellously weak sight, say (as I have heard such politicians say), +“because knowledge is power, and because it won’t do to have too much +power abroad.” Why, ladies and gentlemen, reflect whether ignorance be +not power, and a very dreadful power. Look where we will, do we not find +it powerful for every kind of wrong and evil? Powerful to take its +enemies to its heart, and strike its best friends down—powerful to fill +the prisons, the hospitals, and the graves—powerful for blind violence, +prejudice, and error, in all their gloomy and destructive shapes. +Whereas the power of knowledge, if I understand it, is, to bear and +forbear; to learn the path of duty and to tread it; to engender that +self-respect which does not stop at self, but cherishes the best respect +for the best objects—to turn an always enlarging acquaintance with the +joys and sorrows, capabilities and imperfections of our race to daily +account in mildness of life and gentleness of construction and humble +efforts for the improvement, stone by stone, of the whole social fabric. + +I never heard but one tangible position taken against educational +establishments for the people, and that was, that in this or that +instance, or in these or those instances, education for the people has +failed. And I have never traced even this to its source but I have found +that the term education, so employed, meant anything but +education—implied the mere imperfect application of old, ignorant, +preposterous spelling-book lessons to the meanest purposes—as if you +should teach a child that there is no higher end in electricity, for +example, than expressly to strike a mutton-pie out of the hand of a +greedy boy—and on which it is as unreasonable to found an objection to +education in a comprehensive sense, as it would be to object altogether +to the combing of youthful hair, because in a certain charity school they +had a practice of combing it into the pupils’ eyes. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of this Institution, on +whose behalf we are met; and I start with the education given there, and +I find that it really is an education that is deserving of the name. I +find that there are papers read and lectures delivered, on a variety of +subjects of interest and importance. I find that there are evening +classes formed for the acquisition of sound, useful English information, +and for the study of those two important languages, daily becoming more +important in the business of life,—the French and German. I find that +there is a class for drawing, a chemical class, subdivided into the +elementary branch and the manufacturing branch, most important here. I +find that there is a day-school at twelve shillings a quarter, which +small cost, besides including instruction in all that is useful to the +merchant and the man of business, admits to all the advantages of the +parent institution. I find that there is a School of Design established +in connexion with the Government School; and that there was in January +this year, a library of between six and seven thousand books. Ladies and +gentlemen, if any man would tell me that anything but good could come of +such knowledge as this, all I can say is, that I should consider him a +new and most lamentable proof of the necessity of such institutions, and +should regard him in his own person as a melancholy instance of what a +man may come to by never having belonged to one or sympathized with one. + +There is one other paragraph in this report which struck my eye in +looking over it, and on which I cannot help offering a word of joyful +notice. It is the steady increase that appears to have taken place in +the number of lady members—among whom I hope I may presume are included +some of the bright fair faces that are clustered around me. Gentlemen, I +hold that it is not good for man to be alone—even in Mechanics’ +Institutions; and I rank it as very far from among the last or least of +the merits of such places, that he need not be alone there, and that he +is not. I believe that the sympathy and society of those who are our +best and dearest friends in infancy, in childhood, in manhood, and in old +age, the most devoted and least selfish natures that we know on earth, +who turn to us always constant and unchanged, when others turn away, +should greet us here, if anywhere, and go on with us side by side. + +I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own proper senses at this +moment, that there are charms and graces in such greetings, such as no +other greeting can possess. I know that in every beautiful work of the +Almighty hand, which is illustrated in your lectures, and in every real +or ideal portraiture of fortitude and goodness that you find in your +books, there is something that must bring you home again to them for its +brightest and best example. And therefore, gentlemen, I hope that you +will never be without them, or without an increasing number of them in +your studies and your commemorations; and that an immense number of new +marriages, and other domestic festivals naturally consequent upon those +marriages, may be traced back from time to time to the Leeds Mechanics’ +Institution. + +There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their public +position and service, or endeared to you by frequent intercourse, or by +their zealous efforts on behalf of the cause which brings us together; +and to them I shall beg leave to refer you for further observations on +this happy and interesting occasion; begging to congratulate you finally +upon the occasion itself; upon the prosperity and thriving prospects of +your institution; and upon our common and general good fortune in living +in these times, when the means of mental culture and improvement are +presented cheaply, socially, and cheerfully, and not in dismal cells or +lonely garrets. And lastly, I congratulate myself, I assure you most +heartily, upon the part with which I am honoured on an occasion so +congenial to my warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank you +for such evidences of your good-will, as I never can coldly remember and +never forget. + + * * * * * + +[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:—] + +Ladies and Gentlemen,—It is a great satisfaction to me that this question +has been put by the Mayor, inasmuch as I hope I may receive it as a token +that he has forgiven me those extremely large letters, which I must say, +from the glimpse I caught of them when I arrived in the town, looked like +a leaf from the first primer of a very promising young giant. + +I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of this evening, that +after what I have seen, and the excellent speeches I have heard from +gentlemen of so many different callings and persuasions, meeting here as +on neutral ground, I do more strongly and sincerely believe than I ever +have in my life,—and that is saying a great deal,—that institutions such +as this will be the means of refining and improving that social edifice +which has been so often mentioned to-night, until,—unlike that Babel +tower that would have taken heaven by storm,—it shall end in sweet accord +and harmony amongst all classes of its builders. + +Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily I bid you good night +and good-bye, and I trust the next time we meet it will be in even +greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that we often shall meet +again, to recal this evening, then of the past, and remember it as one of +a series of increasing triumphs of your excellent institution. + + + + +XLVI. +GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847. + + +[The first Soirée, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow Athenæum +took place on the above evening in the City Hall. Mr. Charles Dickens +presided, and made the following speech:] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—Let me begin by endeavouring to convey to you the +assurance that not even the warmth of your reception can possibly exceed, +in simple earnestness, the cordiality of the feeling with which I come +amongst you. This beautiful scene and your generous greeting would +naturally awaken, under any circumstances, no common feeling within me; +but when I connect them with the high purpose of this brilliant +assembly—when I regard it as an educational example and encouragement to +the rest of Scotland—when I regard it no less as a recognition on the +part of everybody here of the right, indisputable and inalienable, of all +those who are actively engaged in the work and business of life to +elevate and improve themselves so far as in them lies, by all good +means—I feel as if I stand here to swear brotherhood to all the young men +in Glasgow;—and I may say to all the young women in Glasgow; being +unfortunately in no position to take any tenderer vows upon myself—and as +if we were pledged from this time henceforth to make common cause +together in one of the most laudable and worthy of human objects. + +Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a design as +that which brings us together this night; for without it, nothing can be +done, but with it, everything. It is a common cause of right, God knows; +for it is idle to suppose that the advantages of such an institution as +the Glasgow Athenæum will stop within its own walls or be confined to its +own members. Through all the society of this great and important city, +upwards to the highest and downwards to the lowest, it must, I know, be +felt for good. Downward in a clearer perception of, and sympathy with, +those social miseries which can be alleviated, and those wide-open doors +to vice and crime that can be shut and barred; and upward in a greater +intelligence, increased efficiency, and higher knowledge, of all who +partake of its benefits themselves, or who communicate, as all must do, +in a greater or less degree, some portion to the circle of relatives or +friends in which they move. + +Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however high his +social position, or however great his attainments, that he might not find +something to be learnt even from immediate contact with such +institutions. If he only saw the goddess Knowledge coming out of her +secluded palaces and high places to mingle with the throng, and to give +them shining glimpses of the delights which were long kept hoarded up, he +might learn something. If he only saw the energy and the courage with +which those who earn their daily bread by the labour of their hands or +heads, come night after night, as to a recreation, to that which was, +perhaps, the whole absorbing business of his youth, there might still be +something very wholesome for him to learn. But when he could see in such +places their genial and reviving influences, their substituting of the +contemplation of the beauties of nature and art, and of the wisdom of +great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid idleness—at any rate he +would learn this—that it is at once the duty and the interest of all good +members of society to encourage and protect them. + +I took occasion to say at an Athenæum in Yorkshire a few weeks since, +{274} and I think it a point most important to be borne in mind on such +commemorations as these, that when such societies are objected to, or are +decried on the ground that in the views of the objectors, education among +the people has not succeeded, the term education is used with not the +least reference to its real meaning, and is wholly misunderstood. Mere +reading and writing is not education; it would be quite as reasonable to +call bricks and mortar architecture—oils and colours art—reeds and +cat-gut music—or the child’s spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, +Milton, or Bacon—as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, +and to visit on that most abused and slandered word their failure in any +instance; and precisely because they were not education; because, +generally speaking, the word has been understood in that sense a great +deal too long; because education for the business of life, and for the +due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least as important from day to +day to the grown person as to the child; because real education, in the +strife and contention for a livelihood, and the consequent necessity +incumbent on a great number of young persons to go into the world when +they are very young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these +things that I look upon mechanics’ institutions and athenæums as vitally +important to the well-being of society. It is because the rudiments of +education may there be turned to good account in the acquisition of sound +principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith, and charity, to which +all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, I take it, that you have +met in education’s name to-night. + +It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf of an +infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a vigorous +constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly fortunate +in knowing it before its prime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure +of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to its lusty +maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has already passed +through some of the disorders to which children are liable; it succeeded +to an elder brother of a very meritorious character, but of rather a weak +constitution, and which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is +said, a destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it +succeeded this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a sea of +troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its pulse +has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it was expected to have +been 10,000; several relations and friends have even gone so far as to +walk off once or twice in the melancholy belief that it was dead. +Through all that, assisted by the indomitable energy of one or two +nurses, to whom it can never be sufficiently grateful, it came +triumphantly, and now, of all the youthful members of its family I ever +saw, it has the strongest attitude, the healthiest look, the brightest +and most cheerful air. I find the institution nobly lodged; I find it +with a reading-room, a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with +lectures given and in progress, in sound, useful and well-selected +subjects; I find it with morning and evening classes for mathematics, +logic, grammar, music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by +upwards of five hundred persons; but, best and first of all and what is +to me more satisfactory than anything else in the history of the +institution, I find that all, this has been mainly achieved by the young +men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And, ladies and +gentlemen, as the axiom, “Heaven helps those who help themselves,” is +truer in no case than it is in this, I look to the young men of Glasgow, +from such a past and such a present, to a noble future. Everything that +has been done in any other athenæum, I confidently expect to see done +here; and when that shall be the case, and when there shall be great +cheap schools in connexion with the institution, and when it has bound +together for ever all its friends, and brought over to itself all those +who look upon it as an objectionable institution,—then, and not till +then, I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their labours, and +think their study done. + +If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in this +wise, they have one beside them in the presence of their fair townswomen, +which is irresistible. It is a most delightful circumstance to me, and +one fraught with inestimable benefits to institutions of this kind, that +at a meeting of this nature those who in all things are our best +examples, encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. The abstract idea +of the Graces was in ancient times associated with those arts which +refine the human understanding; and it is pleasant to see now, in the +rolling of the world, the Graces popularising the practice of those arts +by their example, and adorning it with their presence. + +I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenæum there is a peculiar bond +of union between the institution and the fairest part of creation. I +understand that the necessary addition to the small library of books +being difficult and expensive to make, the ladies have generally resolved +to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the proceeds to this admirable +purpose; and I learn with no less pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in +a graceful and womanly sense of the excellence of this design, has +consented that the bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. I can +only say, that if you do not find something very noble in your books +after this, you are much duller students than I take you to be. The +ladies—the single ladies, at least—however disinterested I know they are +by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of the advantages +of these books, by never marrying any but members of the Athenæum. It +seems to me it ought to be the pleasantest library in the world. + +Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of some +familiar writer of fiction, “How long since I first became acquainted +with these characters; what old-fashioned friends they seem; and yet I am +not tired of them like so many other friends, nor they of me.” In this +case the books will not only possess all the attractions of their own +friendships and charms, but also the manifold—I may say +womanfold—associations connected with their donors. I can imagine how, +in fact, from these fanciful associations, some fair Glasgow widow may be +taken for the remoter one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; I +can imagine how Sophia’s muff may be seen and loved, but not by Tom +Jones, going down the High Street on any winter day; or I can imagine the +student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart of the Glasgow +Athenæum, and taking into consideration the history of Europe without the +consent of Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, in short, how through all the +facts and fictions of this library, these ladies will be always active, +and that + + “Age will not wither them, nor custom stale + Their infinite variety.” + +It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, that this +meeting has been held at this genial season of the year, when a new time +is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate the birth of +that divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest knowledge into the +humblest places, and whose great system comprehended all mankind. I hail +it as a most auspicious omen, at this time of the year, when many +scattered friends and families are re-assembled, for the members of this +institution to be calling men together from all quarters, with a +brotherly view to the general good, and a view to the general +improvement; as I consider that such designs are practically worthy of +the faith we hold, and a practical remembrance of the words, “On earth +peace, and good will toward men.” I hope that every year which dawns on +your Institution, will find it richer in its means of usefulness, and +grayer-headed in the honour and respect it has gained. It can hardly +speak for itself more appropriately than in the words of an English +writer, when contemplating the English emblem of this period of the year, +the holly-tree:— + +[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of Southey’s +poem, _The Holly Tree_.] + + * * * * * + +[In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then Mr.) +Alison, Mr. Dickens said:] + +Ladies and Gentlemen,—I am no stranger—and I say it with the deepest +gratitude—to the warmth of Scottish hearts; but the warmth of your +present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of acknowledging it. I +will not detain you any longer at this late hour; let it suffice to +assure you, that for taking the part with which I have been honoured in +this festival, I have been repaid a thousand-fold by your abundant +kindness, and by the unspeakable gratification it has afforded me. I +hope that, before many years are past, we may have another meeting in +public, when we shall rejoice at the immense progress your institution +will have made in the meantime, and look back upon this night with new +pleasure and satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion, repeat most +heartily and fervently the quotation of Dr. Ewing, the late Provost of +Glasgow, which Bailie Nicol Jarvie, himself “a Glasgow body,” observed +was “elegantly putten round the town’s arms.” + + + + +XLVII. +LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851. + + +[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held at the +London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied the chair, +and in giving the toast of the evening said:—] + +I HAVE so often had the satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in this +place, to the usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose behalf we +are assembled, that I should be really sensible of the disadvantage of +having now nothing to say in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I +were not well assured that there is really nothing which needs be said. +I have to appeal to you on the old grounds, and no ingenuity of mine +could render those grounds of greater weight than they have hitherto +successfully proved to you. + +Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other +public societies and endowments, is represented by no building, whether +of stone, or brick, or glass, like that astonishing evidence of the skill +and energy of my friend Mr. Paxton, which all the world is now called +upon to admire, and the great merit of which, as you learn from the best +authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down long before it was +built, and yet that it would by no means consent to doing so—although, I +say, this Association possesses no architectural home, it is nevertheless +as plain a fact, rests on as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a +front, as any building, in the world. And the best and the utmost that +its exponent and its advocate can do, standing here, is to point it out +to those who gather round it, and to say, “judge for yourselves.” + +It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that portion of the +company whose previous acquaintance with it may have been limited, what +it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are +confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It is a society whose +claims are always preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It +is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical things +entirely past and gone, and no more suited to present theatrical +requirements than a string of pack-horses would be suited to the +conveyance of traffic between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich +old gentleman, with the gout in his vitals, brushed and got-up once a +year to look as vigorous as possible, and brought out for a public airing +by the few survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who +afterwards double-lock the street-door upon the poor relations. It is +not a theatrical association which insists that no actor can share its +bounty who has not walked so many years on those boards where the English +tongue is never heard—between the little bars of music in an aviary of +singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan of Avon is never admitted—that +bounty which was gathered in the name and for the elevation of an +all-embracing art. + +No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind. This is a +theatrical association, expressly adapted to the wants and to the means +of the whole theatrical profession all over England. It is a society in +which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which +includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or Hamlet, or the Ghost, or +the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in the one person, the whole +King’s army. He may do the “light business,” or the “heavy,” or the +comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts the young +lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a +costume one hundred years older than his time. Or he may be the young +lady’s brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the +family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they +sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or he +may be the baron who gives the fête, and who sits uneasily on the sofa +under a canopy with the baroness while the fête is going on. Or he may +be the peasant at the fête who comes on the stage to swell the drinking +chorus, and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass upside down +before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be the clown who takes +away the doorstep of the house where the evening party is going on. Or +he may be the gentleman who issues out of the house on the false alarm, +and is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may +be the fairy who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional +visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the +witch’s cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom I +have observed in country places, that he is much less like the notion +formed from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or Donalbain of +the previous scenes. This society, in short, says, “Be you what you may, +be you actor or actress, be your path in your profession never so high, +or never so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the +means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren.” + +This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a class +of men to take care of their own interests, and giving a continuous +security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and effort. The actor +by the means of this society obtains his own right, to no man’s wrong; +and when, in old age, or in disastrous times, he makes his claim on the +institution, he is enabled to say, “I am neither a beggar, nor a +suppliant. I am but reaping what I sowed long ago.” And therefore it is +that I cannot hold out to you that in assisting this fund you are doing +an act of charity in the common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the +abuses of that much abused term, none have more raised my indignation +than what I have heard in this room in past times, in reference to this +institution. I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the +wagoner who has resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has +_not_ stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an act +of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this is +what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who are +struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend to entreat +from you an act of charity. + +I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own heart, and +confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments for the actor’s art? +Not peculiarly because it is a profession often pursued, and as it were +marked, by poverty and misfortune—for other callings, God knows, have +their distresses—nor because the actor has sometimes to come from scenes +of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part +before us—for all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do violence to +our feelings and to hide our hearts in fighting this great battle of +life, and in discharging our duties and responsibilities. But the art of +the actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous, +which we are all familiar with. If any man were to tell me that he +denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him one +question—whether he remembered his first play? + +If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to that great +night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world which then opened +to your view, we shall, I think, hear favourably of the effect upon your +liberality on this occasion from our Secretary. + +This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind—the sixth time we have +had this fine child down after dinner. His nurse, a very worthy person +of the name of Buckstone, who has an excellent character from several +places, will presently report to you that his chest is perfectly sound, +and that his general health is in the most thriving condition. Long may +it be so; long may it thrive and grow; long may we meet (it is my sincere +wish) to exchange our congratulations on its prosperity; and longer than +the line of Banquo may be that line of figures which, as its patriotic +share in the national debt, a century hence shall be stated by the +Governor and Company of the Bank of England. + + + + +XLVIII. +THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. +LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856. + + +[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790, its +object being to administer assistance to authors of genius and learning, +who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities, or deprived, by +enfeebled faculties or declining life, of the power of literary exertion. +At the annual general meeting held at the house of the society on the +above date, the following speech was made by Mr. Charles Dickens:] + +SIR,—I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in the +profession of literature, represents upon this committee a separate and +distinct branch of the profession, that, like + + “The last rose of summer + Stands blooming alone, + While all its companions + Are faded and gone,” + +into the very prickly bramble-bush with which he has ingeniously +contrived to beset this question. In the remarks I have to make I shall +confine myself to four points:—1. That the committee find themselves in +the painful condition of not spending enough money, and will presently +apply themselves to the great reform of spending more. 2. That with +regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history, that the house +for which Mr. Williams was so anxious was to be applied to uses to which +it never has been applied, and which the administrators of the fund +decline to recognise. 3. That, in Mr. Bell’s endeavours to remove the +Artists’ Fund from the ground of analogy it unquestionably occupies with +reference to this fund, by reason of their continuing periodical relief +to the same persons, I beg to tell Mr. Bell what every gentleman at that +table knows—that it is the business of this fund to relieve over and over +again the same people. + +MR. BELL: But fresh inquiry is always made first. + +MR. C. DICKENS: I can only oppose to that statement my own experience +when I sat on that committee, and when I have known persons relieved on +many consecutive occasions without further inquiry being made. As to the +suggestion that we should select the items of expenditure that we +complain of, I think it is according to all experience that we should +first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too large. If that be +done by the meeting, then I will proceed to the selection of the separate +items. Now, in rising to support this resolution, I may state at once +that I have scarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy +to think it will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of the +resolution’s case that it should not be carried, because it will show the +determination of the fund’s managers. Nothing can possibly be stronger +in favour of the resolution than that the statement should go forth to +the world that twice within twelve months the attention of the committee +has been called to this great expenditure, and twice the committee have +considered that it was not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger +case for the resolution than this statement of fact as to the expenditure +going forth to the public accompanied by the committee’s assertion that +it is reasonable. Now, to separate this question from details, let us +remember what the committee and their supporters asserted last year, and, +I hope, will re-assert this year. It seems to be rather the model kind +of thing than otherwise now that if you get £100 you are to spend £40 in +management; and if you get £1000, of course you may spend £400 in giving +the rest away. Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned people +here who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I +will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly respectable +place of resort, Willis’s Rooms, in St. James’s, to a meeting of this +fund. My original intention was to hear all I could, and say as little +as possible. Allowing for the absence of the younger and fairer portion +of the creation, the general appearance of the place was something like +Almack’s in the morning. A number of stately old dowagers sat in a row +on one side, and old gentlemen on the other. The ball was opened with +due solemnity by a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the secretary, +at which the audience were much affected. Then another party advanced, +who, I am sorry to say, was only a member of the House of Commons, and he +took possession of the floor. To him, however, succeeded a lord, then a +bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord, then one or two celebrities +from the City and Stock Exchange, and at last a gentleman, who made a +fortune by the success of “Candide,” sustained the part of Pangloss, and +spoke much of what he evidently believed to be the very best management +of this best of all possible funds. Now it is in this fondness for being +stupendously genteel, and keeping up fine appearances—this vulgar and +common social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price, that +the money goes. The last time you got a distinguished writer at a public +meeting, and he was called on to address you somewhere amongst the small +hours, he told you he felt like the man in plush who was permitted to +sweep the stage down after all the other people had gone. If the founder +of this society were here, I should think he would feel like a sort of +Rip van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred +years and woke up to find his fund still lying under the feet of people +who did nothing for it instead of being emancipated and standing alone +long ago. This Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for +show, and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his +official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.) When one +enters the house it appears to be haunted by a series of +mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide about engaged in some extraordinary +occupation, and, after the approved fashion of ghosts, but seldom +condescend to disclose their business. What are all these meetings and +inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I say, as a writer by +profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary to ascertain +whether an applicant deserves relief, is a preposterous pretence, and +that working literary men would have a far better knowledge of the cases +coming before the board than can ever be attained by that committee. +Further, I say openly and plainly, that this fund is pompously and +unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of being quietly +administered at small expense; and that the secrecy to which it lays +claim as its greatest attribute, is not kept; for through those “two +respectable householders,” to whom reference must be made, the names of +the most deserving applicants are to numbers of people perfectly well +known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact as +to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are justifiable, +becoming, or decent. I beg most earnestly and respectfully to put it to +those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that must now decide, and +cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not +for. The question raised by the resolution is whether this is a public +corporation for the relief of men of genius and learning, or whether it +is a snug, traditional, and conventional party, bent upon maintaining its +own usages with a vast amount of pride; upon its own annual puffery at +costly dinner-tables, and upon a course of expensive toadying to a number +of distinguished individuals. This is the question which you cannot this +day escape. + + + + +XLIX. +LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857. + + +[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and Clerks Schools, +which took place on Thursday evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at the London +Tavern, and was very numerously attended, Mr. Charles Dickens occupied +the chair. On the subject which had brought the company together Mr. +Dickens spoke as follows:—] + +I MUST now solicit your attention for a few minutes to the cause of your +assembling together—the main and real object of this evening’s gathering; +for I suppose we are all agreed that the motto of these tables is not +“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;” but, “Let us eat and drink, +for to-morrow we live.” It is because a great and good work is to live +to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to live a greater and better +life with every succeeding to-morrow, that we eat and drink here at all. +Conspicuous on the card of admission to this dinner is the word +“Schools.” This set me thinking this morning what are the sorts of +schools that I don’t like. I found them on consideration, to be rather +numerous. I don’t like to begin with, and to begin as charity does at +home—I don’t like the sort of school to which I once went myself—the +respected proprietor of which was by far the most ignorant man I have +ever had the pleasure to know; one of the worst-tempered men perhaps that +ever lived, whose business it was to make as much out of us and put as +little into us as possible, and who sold us at a figure which I remember +we used to delight to estimate, as amounting to exactly £2 4s. 6d. per +head. I don’t like that sort of school, because I don’t see what +business the master had to be at the top of it instead of the bottom, and +because I never could understand the wholesomeness of the moral preached +by the abject appearance and degraded condition of the teachers who +plainly said to us by their looks every day of their lives, “Boys, never +be learned; whatever you are, above all things be warned from that in +time by our sunken cheeks, by our poor pimply noses, by our meagre diet, +by our acid-beer, and by our extraordinary suits of clothes, of which no +human being can say whether they are snuff-coloured turned black, or +black turned snuff-coloured, a point upon which we ourselves are +perfectly unable to offer any ray of enlightenment, it is so very long +since they were undarned and new.” I do not like that sort of school, +because I have never yet lost my ancient suspicion touching that curious +coincidence that the boy with four brothers to come always got the +prizes. In fact, and short, I do not like that sort of school, which is +a pernicious and abominable humbug, altogether. Again, ladies and +gentlemen, I don’t like that sort of school—a ladies’ school—with which +the other school used to dance on Wednesdays, where the young ladies, as +I look back upon them now, seem to me always to have been in new stays +and disgrace—the latter concerning a place of which I know nothing at +this day, that bounds Timbuctoo on the north-east—and where memory always +depicts the youthful enthraller of my first affection as for ever +standing against a wall, in a curious machine of wood, which confined her +innocent feet in the first dancing position, while those arms, which +should have encircled my jacket, those precious arms, I say, were +pinioned behind her by an instrument of torture called a backboard, fixed +in the manner of a double direction post. Again, I don’t like that sort +of school, of which we have a notable example in Kent, which was +established ages ago by worthy scholars and good men long deceased, whose +munificent endowments have been monstrously perverted from their original +purpose, and which, in their distorted condition, are struggled for and +fought over with the most indecent pertinacity. Again, I don’t like that +sort of school—and I have seen a great many such in these latter +times—where the bright childish imagination is utterly discouraged, and +where those bright childish faces, which it is so very good for the +wisest among us to remember in after life—when the world is too much with +us, early and late {292}—are gloomily and grimly scared out of +countenance; where I have never seen among the pupils, whether boys or +girls, anything but little parrots and small calculating machines. +Again, I don’t by any means like schools in leather breeches, and with +mortified straw baskets for bonnets, which file along the streets in long +melancholy rows under the escort of that surprising British monster—a +beadle, whose system of instruction, I am afraid, too often presents that +happy union of sound with sense, of which a very remarkable instance is +given in a grave report of a trustworthy school inspector, to the effect +that a boy in great repute at school for his learning, presented on his +slate, as one of the ten commandments, the perplexing prohibition, “Thou +shalt not commit doldrum.” Ladies and gentlemen, I confess, also, that I +don’t like those schools, even though the instruction given in them be +gratuitous, where those sweet little voices which ought to be heard +speaking in very different accents, anathematise by rote any human being +who does not hold what is taught there. Lastly, I do not like, and I did +not like some years ago, cheap distant schools, where neglected children +pine from year to year under an amount of neglect, want, and youthful +misery far too sad even to be glanced at in this cheerful assembly. + +And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permit me to sketch in a +few words the sort of school that I do like. It is a school established +by the members of an industrious and useful order, which supplies the +comforts and graces of life at every familiar turning in the road of our +existence; it is a school established by them for the Orphan and +Necessitous Children of their own brethren and sisterhood; it is a place +giving an education worthy of them—an education by them invented, by them +conducted, by them watched over; it is a place of education where, while +the beautiful history of the Christian religion is daily taught, and +while the life of that Divine Teacher who Himself took little children on +His knees is daily studied, no sectarian ill-will nor narrow human dogma +is permitted to darken the face of the clear heaven which they disclose. +It is a children’s school, which is at the same time no less a children’s +home, a home not to be confided to the care of cold or ignorant +strangers, nor, by the nature of its foundation, in the course of ages to +pass into hands that have as much natural right to deal with it as with +the peaks of the highest mountains or with the depths of the sea, but to +be from generation to generation administered by men living in precisely +such homes as those poor children have lost; by men always bent upon +making that replacement, such a home as their own dear children might +find a happy refuge in if they themselves were taken early away. And I +fearlessly ask you, is this a design which has any claim to your +sympathy? Is this a sort of school which is deserving of your support? + +This is the design, this is the school, whose strong and simple claim I +have to lay before you to-night. I must particularly entreat you not to +suppose that my fancy and unfortunate habit of fiction has anything to do +with the picture I have just presented to you. It is sober matter of +fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks’ Schools, established for the +maintaining, clothing, and educating of the Orphan and Necessitous +Children of those employed in the wholesale trades and manufactures of +the United Kingdom, are, in fact, what I have just described. These +schools for both sexes were originated only four years ago. In the first +six weeks of the undertaking the young men of themselves and quite +unaided, subscribed the large sum of £3,000. The schools have been +opened only three years, they have now on their foundation thirty-nine +children, and in a few days they will have six more, making a total of +forty-five. They have been most munificently assisted by the heads of +great mercantile houses, numerously represented, I am happy to say, +around me, and they have a funded capital of almost £14,000. This is +wonderful progress, but the aim must still be upwards, the motto always +“Excelsior.” You do not need to be told that five-and-forty children can +form but a very small proportion of the Orphan and Necessitous Children +of those who have been entrusted with the wholesale trades and +manufactures of the United Kingdom: you do not require to be informed +that the house at New-cross, rented for a small term of years, in which +the schools are at present established, can afford but most imperfect +accommodation for such a breadth of design. To carry this good work +through the two remaining degrees of better and best there must be more +work, more co-operation, more friends, more money. Then be the friends +and give the money. Before I conclude, there is one other feature in +these schools which I would commend to your special attention and +approval. Their benefits are reserved for the children of subscribers; +that is to say, it is an essential principle of the institution that it +must help those whose parents have helped them, and that the unfortunate +children whose father has been so lax, or so criminal, as to withhold a +subscription so exceedingly small that when divided by weeks it amounts +to only threepence weekly, cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle out +and shoulder away the happier children, whose father has had that little +forethought, or done that little kindness which was requisite to secure +for them the benefits of the institution. I really cannot believe that +there will long be any such defaulting parents. I cannot believe that +any of the intelligent young men who are engaged in the wholesale houses +will long neglect this obvious, this easy duty. If they suppose that the +objects of their love, born or unborn, will never want the benefits of +the charity, that may be a fatal and blind mistake—it can never be an +excuse, for, supposing them to be right in their anticipation, they +should do what is asked for the sake of their friends and comrades around +them, assured that they will be the happier and the better for the deed. + +Ladies and gentlemen, this little “labour of love” of mine is now done. +I most heartily wish that I could charm you now not to see me, not to +think of me, not to hear me—I most heartily wish that I could make you +see in my stead the multitude of innocent and bereaved children who are +looking towards these schools, and entreating with uplifted hands to be +let in. A very famous advocate once said, in speaking of his fears of +failure when he had first to speak in court, being very poor, that he +felt his little children tugging at his skirts, and that recovered him. +Will you think of the number of little children who are tugging at my +skirts, when I ask you, in their names, on their behalf, and in their +little persons, and in no strength of my own, to encourage and assist +this work? + + * * * * * + +At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposed the health of the +President of the Institution, Lord John Russell. He said he should do +nothing so superfluous and so unnecessary as to descant upon his +lordship’s many faithful, long, and great public services, upon the +honour and integrity with which he had pursued his straightforward public +course through every difficulty, or upon the manly, gallant, and +courageous character, which rendered him certain, in the eyes alike of +friends and opponents, to rise with every rising occasion, and which, +like the seal of Solomon, in the old Arabian story, enclosed in a not +very large casket the soul of a giant. In answer to loud cheers, he said +he had felt perfectly certain, that that would be the response for in no +English assembly that he had ever seen was it necessary to do more than +mention the name of Lord John Russell to ensure a manifestation of +personal respect and grateful remembrance. + + + + +L. +LONDON, MAY 8, 1858. + + +[The forty-eighth Anniversary of the establishment of the Artists’ +Benevolent Fund took place on the above date at the Freemasons’ Tavern. +The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after having disposed of +the preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, proceeded to advocate the +claims of the Institution in whose interest the company had assembled, in +the following terms:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—There is an absurd theatrical story which was once +told to me by a dear and valued friend, who has now passed from this +sublunary stage, and which is not without its moral as applied to myself, +in my present presidential position. In a certain theatrical company was +included a man, who on occasions of emergency was capable of taking part +in the whole round of the British drama, provided he was allowed to use +his own language in getting through the dialogue. It happened one night +that Reginald, in the _Castle Spectre_, was taken ill, and this veteran +of a hundred characters was, of course, called up for the vacant part. +He responded with his usual promptitude, although knowing nothing +whatever of the character, but while they were getting him into the +dress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish to know in some vague way +what the part was about. He was not particular as to details, but in +order that he might properly pourtray his sufferings, he thought he +should have some slight inkling as to what really had happened to him. +As, for example, what murders he had committed, whose father he was, of +what misfortunes he was the victim,—in short, in a general way to know +why he was in that place at all. They said to him, “Here you are, +chained in a dungeon, an unhappy father; you have been here for seventeen +years, during which time you have never seen your daughter; you have +lived upon bread and water, and, in consequence, are extremely weak, and +suffer from occasional lowness of spirits.”—“All right,” said the actor +of universal capabilities, “ring up.” When he was discovered to the +audience, he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was very +favourably received, and gave every sign of going on well, until, through +some mental confusion as to his instructions, he opened the business of +the act by stating in pathetic terms, that he had been confined in that +dungeon seventeen years, during which time he had not tasted a morsel of +food, to which circumstance he was inclined to attribute the fact of his +being at that moment very much out of condition. The audience, thinking +this statement exceedingly improbable, declined to receive it, and the +weight of that speech hung round him until the end of his performance. + +Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the honour of +performing before you, and it behoves both you and me to profit by the +terrible warning I have detailed, while I endeavour to make the part I +have undertaken as plain and intelligible as I possibly can. + +As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect the +business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking prosperity to the +Artists’ Benevolent Fund, it becomes important that we should know what +that fund is. It is an Association supported by the voluntary gifts of +those who entertain a critical and admiring estimation of art, and has +for its object the granting of annuities to the widows and children of +deceased artists—of artists who have been unable in their lives to make +any provision for those dear objects of their love surviving themselves. +Now it is extremely important to observe that this institution of an +Artists’ Benevolent Fund, which I now call on you to pledge, has +connected with it, and has arisen out of another artists’ association, +which does not ask you for a health, which never did, and never will ask +you for a health, which is self-supporting, and which is entirely +maintained by the prudence and providence of its three hundred artist +members. That fund, which is called the Artists’ Annuity Fund, is, so to +speak, a joint and mutual Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, +and age. To the benefits it affords every one of its members has an +absolute right, a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and +self-denial, and not assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion of +any human being. On that fund there are, if I remember a right, some +seventeen annuitants who are in the receipt of eleven hundred a-year, the +proceeds of their own self-supporting Institution. In recommending to +you this benevolent fund, which is not self-supporting, they address you, +in effect, in these words:—“We ask you to help these widows and orphans, +because we show you we have first helped ourselves. These widows and +orphans may be ours or they may not be ours; but in any case we will +prove to you to a certainty that we are not so many wagoners calling upon +Jupiter to do our work, because we do our own work; each has his shoulder +to the wheel; each, from year to year, has had his shoulder set to the +wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter and all the gods is simply +this—that this fact may be remembered when the wagon has stopped for +ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies lifeless by the roadside. + +“Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress on you the +strength of this appeal. I am a painter, a sculptor, or an engraver, of +average success. I study and work here for no immense return, while life +and health, while hand and eye are mine. I prudently belong to the +Annuity Fund, which in sickness, old age, and infirmity, preserves me +from want. I do my duty to those who are depending on me while life +remains; but when the grass grows above my grave there is no provision +for them any longer.” + +This is the case with the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, and in stating this I +am only the mouthpiece of three hundred of the trade, who in truth stands +as independent before you as if they were three hundred Cockers all +regulated by the Gospel according to themselves. There are in existence +three artists’ funds, which ought never to be mentioned without respect. +I am an officer of one of them, and can speak from knowledge; but on this +occasion I address myself to a case for which there is no provision. I +address you on behalf of those professors of the fine arts who have made +provision during life, and in submitting to you their claims I am only +advocating principles which I myself have always maintained. + +When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to gentility, +squanders no treasure in keeping up appearances, that it considers that +the money given for the widow and the orphan, should really be held for +the widow and the orphan, I think I have exhausted the case, which I +desire most strenuously to commend to you. + +Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I will not consent to +present to you the professors of Art as a set of helpless babies, who are +to be held up by the chin; I present them as an energetic and persevering +class of men, whose incomes depend on their own faculties and personal +exertions; and I also make so bold as to present them as men who in their +vocation render good service to the community. I am strongly disposed to +believe there are very few debates in Parliament so important to the +public welfare as a really good picture. I have also a notion that any +number of bundles of the driest legal chaff that ever was chopped would +be cheaply expended for one really meritorious engraving. At a highly +interesting annual festival at which I have the honour to assist, and +which takes place behind two fountains, I sometimes observe that great +ministers of state and other such exalted characters have a strange +delight in rather ostentatiously declaring that they have no knowledge +whatever of art, and particularly of impressing on the company that they +have passed their lives in severe studies. It strikes me when I hear +these things as if these great men looked upon the arts as a sort of +dancing dogs, or Punch’s show, to be turned to for amusement when one has +nothing else to do. Now I always take the opportunity on these occasions +of entertaining my humble opinion that all this is complete “bosh;” and +of asserting to myself my strong belief that the neighbourhoods of +Trafalgar Square, or Suffolk Street, rightly understood, are quite as +important to the welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, or +Westminster Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and backed by +the recommendation of three hundred artists in favour of the Benevolent +Fund, I beg to propose its prosperity as a toast for your adoption. + + + + +LI. +THE FAREWELL READING. +ST. JAMES’S HALL, MARCH 15, 1870. + + +[With the “Christmas Carol” and “The Trial from Pickwick,” Mr. Charles +Dickens brought to a brilliant close the memorable series of public +readings which have for sixteen years proved to audiences unexampled in +numbers, the source of the highest intellectual enjoyment. Every portion +of available space in the building was, of course, last night occupied +some time before the appointed hour; but could the St. James’s Hall have +been specially enlarged for the occasion to the dimensions of Salisbury +Plain, it is doubtful whether sufficient room would even then have been +provided for all anxious to seize the last chance of hearing the +distinguished novelist give his own interpretation of the characters +called into existence by his own creative pen. As if determined to +convince his auditors that, whatever reason had influenced his +determination, physical exhaustion was not amongst them, Mr. Dickens +never read with greater spirit and energy. His voice to the last +retained its distinctive clearness, and the transitions of tone, as each +personage in the story, conjured up by a word, rose vividly before the +eye, seemed to be more marvellous than ever. The vast assemblage, hushed +into breathless attention, suffered not a syllable to escape the ear, and +the rich humour and deep pathos of one of the most delightful books ever +written found once again the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of +merriment responsive to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit’s +Christmas day, and the wonted sympathy with the crippled child “Tiny +Tim,” found prompt expression, and the general delight at hearing of +Ebenezer Scrooge’s reformation was only checked by the saddening +remembrance that with it the last strain of the “carol” was dying away. +After the “Trial from Pickwick,” in which the speeches of the opposing +counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge, seemed to be delivered and +depicted with greater dramatic power than ever, the applause of the +audience rang for several minutes through the hall, and when it had +subsided, Mr. Dickens, with evidently strong emotion, but in his usual +distinct and expressive manner, spoke as follows:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It would be worse than idle—for it would be +hypocritical and unfeeling—if I were to disguise that I close this +episode in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For some +fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I have had the +honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your +recognition, and, in closely observing your reception of them, have +enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction which, perhaps, is +given to few men to know. In this task, and in every other I have ever +undertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a +sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best, I have been +uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous sympathy, +and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, +at the full flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon those older +associations between us, which date from much further back than these, +and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art that first brought +us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time +I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of +readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; {303} but from +these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, +grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell. + +[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic description, +whilst hats and handkerchiefs were waving in every part of the hall, Mr. +Charles Dickens retired, withdrawing with him one of the greatest +intellectual treats the public ever enjoyed.] + + + + +LII. +THE NEWSVENDORS’ INSTITUTION. +LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870. + + +[The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and +Provident Institution was held on the above evening, at the Freemason’s +Tavern. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, and was supported by the Sheriffs +of the City of London and Middlesex. + +After the usual toasts had been given and responded to, + +The Chairman said that if the approved order of their proceedings had +been observed, the Corporation of the City of London would no doubt have +considered themselves snubbed if they were not toasted by themselves. He +was sure that a distinguished member of the Corporation who was present +would tell the company what the Corporation were going to do; and he had +not the slightest doubt they were going to do something highly creditable +to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the whole metropolis; +and if the secret were not at present locked up in the blue chamber, they +would be all deeply obliged to the gentleman who would immediately follow +him, if he let them into it in the same confidence as he had observed +with respect to the Corporation of the City of London being snubbed. He +begged to give the toast of “The Corporation of the City of London.” + +Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, said for once, and once +only, had their chairman said an unkind word about the Corporation of +London. He had always reckoned Mr. Dickens to be one of the warmest +friends of the Corporation; and remembering that he (Mr. Dickens) did +really go through a Lord Mayor’s Show in a Lord Mayor’s carriage, if he +had not felt himself quite a Lord Mayor, he must have at least considered +himself next to one. + +In proposing the toast of the evening Mr. Dickens said:—] + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—You receive me with so much cordiality that I fear +you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s state coach. +Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received from Mr. +Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour. Furthermore, I beg to +assure you that I never witnessed a Lord Mayor’s show except from the +point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, +ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt +if you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you that I occupy this +chair to-night, because, having filled it on several previous occasions +for the society on whose behalf we are assembled, and having said +everything that I could think of to say about it, and being, moreover, +the president of the institution itself, I am placed to-night in the +modest position of a host who is not so much to display himself as to +call out his guests—perhaps even to try to induce some among them to +occupy his place on another occasion. And, therefore, you may be safely +sure that, like Falstaff, but with a modification almost as large as +himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of speaking in others than to +speak myself to-night. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a +snuff shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, +who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged +all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and +patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same line. + +It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman’s +calling that no toast we have drunk to-night—and no toast we shall drink +to-night—and no toast we might, could, should, or would drink to-night, +is separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all possible +subjects of human interest which he delivers at our doors every day. +Further, it may be worthy the consideration of everybody here who has +talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour since we have sat down at the +table, what in the name of Heaven should we have talked about, and how on +earth could we have possibly got on, if our newsman had only for one +single day forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is +not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let us try to form a +little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us remember that his +work is very arduous; that it occupies him early and late; that the +profits he derives from us are at the best very small; that the services +he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, his little +capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, anxieties, and hazards; +and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to all manner of +weathers, of tempers, and of difficult and unreasonable requirements. + +Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, which +originated by chance. The subject was, What was the most absorbing and +longest-lived passion in the human breast? What was the passion so +powerful that it would almost induce the generous to be mean, the +careless to be cautious, the guileless to be deeply designing, and the +dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and great +acuteness, who was one of the company, considerably surprised us by +saying with the greatest confidence that the passion in question was the +passion of getting orders for the play. + +There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of the +surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these on making +land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper office, with +his story of how he had seen the ship go down before his eyes. That +young man had witnessed the most terrible contention between the powers +of fire and water for the destruction of that ship and of every one on +board. He had rowed away among the floating, dying, and the sinking +dead. He had floated by day, and he had frozen by night, with no shelter +and no food, and, as he told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes +about the room. When he had finished, and the tale had been noted down +from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and soothed, and asked if +anything could be done for him. Even within him that master passion was +so strong that he immediately replied he should like an order for the +play. My friend the editor certainly thought that was rather a strong +case; but he said that during his many years of experience he had +witnessed an incurable amount of self-prostration and abasement having no +outer object, and that almost invariably on the part of people who could +well afford to pay. + +This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this faith +until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I was kindly +escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of-the-way town +it represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman, to whom I +propounded, as we went along under my umbrella—he being most excellent +company—this old question, what was the one all-absorbing passion of the +human soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it +certainly was the passion for getting your newspaper in advance of your +fellow-creatures; also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your +own door at exactly the same time as another man who hired the same copy +four miles off; and, finally, the invincible determination on the part of +both men not to believe the time was up when the boy called. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying this +experience with my friends of the managing committee, but I have no doubt +from its reception to-night that my friend the newsman was perfectly +right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an +assurance that among a little body of working men there is a feeling of +brotherhood and sympathy—which is worth much to all men, or they would +herd with wolves—the newsvendors once upon a time established the +Benevolent and Provident Institution, and here it is. Under the +Provident head, certain small annuities are granted to old and +hard-working subscribers. Under the Benevolent head, relief is afforded +to temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, I am bound to say +the help rendered is very humble and very sparing, but if you like it to +be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. Such as it is, it +is most gratefully received, and does a deal of good. Such as it is, it +is most discreetly and feelingly administered; and it is encumbered with +no wasteful charges for management or patronage. + +You know upon an old authority, that you may believe anything except +facts and figures, but you really may believe that during the last year +we have granted £100 in pensions, and some £70 in temporary relief, and +we have invested in Government securities some £400. But, touching this +matter of investments, it was suggested at the anniversary dinner, on the +high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips that we might grant more +pensions and invest less money. We urged, on the other hand, that we +wished our pensions to be certain and unchangeable—which of course they +must be if they are always paid out of our Government interest and never +out of our capital. However, so amiable is our nature, that we profess +our desire to grant more pensions and to invest more money too. The more +you give us to-night again, so amiable is our nature, the more we promise +to do in both departments. That the newsman’s work has greatly +increased, and that it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to +be, you may infer from one fact, not to mention that we live in railway +times. It is stated in Mitchell’s “Newspaper Press Directory,” that +during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers which +appeared in London had more than doubled, while the increase in the +number of people among whom they were disseminated was probably beyond +calculation. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman’s simple case. I leave +it in your hands. Within the last year the institution has had the good +fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support of the eminent man +of letters I am proud to call my friend, {309} who now represents the +great Republic of America at the British Court. Also it has the honour +of enrolling upon its list of donors and vice-presidents the great name +of Longfellow. I beg to propose to you to drink “Prosperity to the +Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution.” + + + + +LIII. +MACREADY. +LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851. + + +[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr. Macready +entertained him at a public dinner. Upwards of six hundred gentlemen +assembled to do honour to the great actor on his retirement from the +stage. Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among the other speakers were +Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr. Thackeray, Mr. John Forster, Mr. +W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles Dickens, who proposed “The Health of the +Chairman” in the following words:—] + +GENTLEMEN,—After all you have already heard, and so rapturously received, +I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind welcome would embolden +me to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence in the subject I +have to offer to your notice. But my reliance on the strength of this +appeal to you is so strong that I am rather encouraged than daunted by +the brightness of the track on which I have to throw my little shadow. + +Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites essential +to the perfect realisation of a scene so unusual and so splendid as that +in which we are now assembled. The first, and I must say very difficult +requisite, is a man possessing the stronghold in the general remembrance, +the indisputable claim on the general regard and esteem, which is +possessed by my dear and much valued friend our guest. The second +requisite is the presence of a body of entertainers,—a great multitude of +hosts so cheerful and good-humoured (under, I am sorry to say, some +personal inconvenience),—so warm-hearted and so nobly in earnest, as +those whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly +not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his social +position, which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune, which may +have been adventitiously won, and may be again accidentally lost, than by +his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the best part of him to +whom honour is done, and the best part of those who unite in the doing of +it. Such a president I think we have found in our chairman of to-night, +and I need scarcely add that our chairman’s health is the toast I have to +propose to you. + +Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that memorable +scene on Wednesday night last, {311} when the great vision which had been +a delight and a lesson,—very often, I daresay, a support and a comfort to +you, which had for many years improved and charmed us, and to which we +had looked for an elevated relief from the labours of our lives, faded +from our sight for ever. I will not stop to inquire whether our guest +may or may not have looked backward, through rather too long a period for +us, to some remote and distant time when he might possibly bear some +far-off likeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once +served. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable +disposition in the audience of Wednesday to seize upon the words— + + “And I have brought, + Golden opinions from all sorts of people, + Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, + Not cast aside so soon—” {312} + +but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how in my +mind I mainly connect that occasion with the present. When I looked +round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit hushed into +stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, +where men in their shirt-sleeves had been striking out their arms like +strong swimmers—when I saw that boisterous human flood become still water +in a moment, and remain so from the opening to the end of the play, it +suggested to me something besides the trustworthiness of an English +crowd, and the delusion under which those labour who are apt to disparage +and malign it: it suggested to me that in meeting here to-night we +undertook to represent something of the all-pervading feeling of that +crowd, through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, +with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, to the +half-undressed gentleman; who bides his time to take some refreshment in +the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that no one who +could possibly be placed in this chair could so well head that +comprehensive representation, and could so well give the crowning grace +to our festivities, as one whose comprehensive genius has in his various +works embraced them all, and who has, in his dramatic genius, enchanted +and enthralled them all at once. + +Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have heard +this night, what I have seen and known in the bygone times of Mr. +Macready’s management, of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for +him, of the association of his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. +Macready’s zealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted me to +say what, in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in the +path we both tread I have uniformly found him from the first the most +generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to +assert the order of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending +to shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might +leave his slippers outside a mosque. + +There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the effect that +authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not invariably +and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I must concede +half-a-grain or so of truth I to that superstition; but this I know, that +there can hardly be—that there hardly can have been—among the followers +of literature, a man of more high standing farther above these little +grudging jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, than +Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. + +And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my testimony to +his great consideration for those evils which are sometimes unfortunately +attendant upon it, though not on him. For, in conjunction with some +other gentlemen now present, I have just embarked in a design with Sir +Bulwer Lytton, to smoothe the rugged way of young labourers, both in +literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary +means, the declining years of meritorious age. And if that project +prosper as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will one day be an +honour to England where there is now a reproach; originating in his +sympathies, being brought into operation by his activity, and endowed +from its very cradle by his generosity. There are many among you who +will have each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman’s +health, resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified +successes. According to the nature of your reading, some of you will +connect him with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will +connect him with comedy, and another with the romantic passions of the +stage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest struggle against + + “those twin gaolers of the human heart, + Low birth and iron fortune.” + +Again, another’s taste will lead him to the contemplation of Rienzi and +the streets of Rome; another’s to the rebuilt and repeopled streets of +Pompeii; another’s to the touching history of the fireside where the +Caxton family learned how to discipline their natures and tame their wild +hopes down. But, however various their feelings and reasons may be, I am +sure that with one accord each will help the other, and all will swell +the greeting, with which I shall now propose to you “The Health of our +Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.” + + + + +LIV. +SANITARY REFORM. +LONDON, MAY 10, 1851. + + +[The members and friends of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association dined +together on the above evening at Gore House, Kensington. The Earl of +Carlisle occupied the chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was present, and in +proposing “The Board of Health,” made the following speech:—] + +THERE are very few words for me to say upon the needfulness of sanitary +reform, or the consequent usefulness of the Board of Health. That no man +can estimate the amount of mischief grown in dirt,—that no man can say +the evil stops here or stops there, either in its moral or physical +effects, or can deny that it begins in the cradle and is not at rest in +the miserable grave, is as certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane +will be carried by an easterly wind into Mayfair, or that the furious +pestilence raging in St. Giles’s no mortal list of lady patronesses can +keep out of Almack’s. Fifteen years ago some of the valuable reports of +Mr. Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, strengthening and much enlarging my +knowledge, made me earnest in this cause in my own sphere; and I can +honestly declare that the use I have since that time made of my eyes and +nose have only strengthened the conviction that certain sanitary reforms +must precede all other social remedies, and that neither education nor +religion can do anything useful until the way has been paved for their +ministrations by cleanliness and decency. + +I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heard the speech of +the right reverend prelate {316} this evening—a speech which no sanitary +reformer can have heard without emotion. Of what avail is it to send +missionaries to the miserable man condemned to work in a foetid court, +with every sense bestowed upon him for his health and happiness turned +into a torment, with every month of his life adding to the heap of evils +under which he is condemned to exist? What human sympathy within him is +that instructor to address? what natural old chord within him is he to +touch? Is it the remembrance of his children?—a memory of destitution, +of sickness, of fever, and of scrofula? Is it his hopes, his latent +hopes of immortality? He is so surrounded by and embedded in material +filth, that his soul cannot rise to the contemplation of the great truths +of religion. Or if the case is that of a miserable child bred and +nurtured in some noisome, loathsome place, and tempted, in these better +days, into the ragged school, what can a few hours’ teaching effect +against the ever-renewed lesson of a whole existence? But give them a +glimpse of heaven through a little of its light and air; give them water; +help them to be clean; lighten that heavy atmosphere in which their +spirits flag and in which they become the callous things they are; take +the body of the dead relative from the close room in which the living +live with it, and where death, being familiar, loses its awe; and then +they will be brought willingly to hear of Him whose thoughts were so much +with the poor, and who had compassion for all human suffering. + +The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is entitled to +all the honour which can be conferred upon it. We have very near us, in +Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very great thing can ever +be accomplished without an immense amount of abuse being heaped upon it. +In connexion with the Board of Health we are always hearing a very large +word which is always pronounced with a very great relish—the word +centralization. Now I submit that in the time of the cholera we had a +pretty good opportunity of judging between this so called centralization +and what I may, I think, call “vestrylisation.” I dare say the company +present have read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I +daresay they have also read reports of certain vestries. I have the +honour of belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, +the Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will look +to what was done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and then contrast +those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which affairs were +managed at the same period by my vestry, there will be very little +difficulty in judging between them. My vestry even took upon itself to +deny the existence of cholera as a weak invention of the enemy, and that +denial had little or no effect in staying the progress of the disease. +We can now contrast what centralization is as represented by a few noisy +and interested gentlemen, and what centralization is when worked out by a +body combining business habits, sound medical and social knowledge, and +an earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the working classes. + +Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in a word not so +large as the other,—“Delay.” I would suggest, in respect to this, that +it would be very unreasonable to complain that a first-rate chronometer +didn’t go when its master had not wound it up. The Board of Health may +be excellently adapted for going and very willing and anxious to go, and +yet may not be permitted to go by reason of its lawful master having +fallen into a gentle slumber and forgotten to set it a going. One of the +speakers this evening has referred to Lord Castlereagh’s caution “not to +halloo until they were out of the wood.” As regards the Board of Trade I +would suggest that they ought not to halloo until they are out of the +Woods and Forests. In that leafy region the Board of Health suffers all +sorts of delays, and this should always be borne in mind. With the toast +of the Board of Health I will couple the name of a noble lord (Ashley), +of whose earnestness in works of benevolence, no man can doubt, and who +has the courage on all occasions to face the cant which is the worst and +commonest of all—the cant about the cant of philanthropy. + + + + +LV. +GARDENING. +LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851. + + +[At the anniversary dinner of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution, held +under the presidency of Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton, Mr. Charles +Dickens made the following speech:—] + +I FEEL an unbounded and delightful interest in all the purposes and +associations of gardening. Probably there is no feeling in the human +mind stronger than the love of gardening. The prisoner will make a +garden in his prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in the chink of a +wall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet bean from one side of +his window to the other, and watch it and tend it with unceasing +interest. It is a holy duty in foreign countries to decorate the graves +of the dead with flowers, and here, too, the resting-places of those who +have passed away from us will soon be gardens. From that old time when +the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, down to the day +when a Poet-Laureate sang— + + “Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, + From yon blue heaven above us bent + The gardener Adam and his wife + Smile at the claims of long descent,” + +at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst the objects of the +greatest interest to mankind. There may be a few, but I believe they are +but a few, who take no interest in the products of gardening, except +perhaps in “London Pride,” or a certain degenerate kind of “Stock,” which +is apt to grow hereabouts, cultivated by a species of frozen-out +gardeners whom no thaw can ever penetrate: except these, the gardeners’ +art has contributed to the delight of all men in their time. That there +ought to be a Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners is in the +fitness of things, and that such an institution ought to flourish and +does flourish is still more so. + +I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who is a great +gardener, and not only a great gardener but a great man—the growth of a +fine Saxon root cultivated up with a power of intellect to a plant that +is at this time the talk of the civilized world—I allude, of course, to +my friend the chairman of the day. I took occasion to say at a public +assembly hard-by, a month or two ago, in speaking of that wonderful +building Mr. Paxton has designed for the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, +that it ought to have fallen down, but that it refused to do so. We were +told that the glass ought to have been all broken, the gutters all choked +up, and the building flooded, and that the roof and sides ought to have +been blown away; in short that everything ought to have done what +everything obstinately persisted in not doing. Earth, air, fire, and +water all appear to have conspired together in Mr. Paxton’s favour—all +have conspired together to one result, which, when the present generation +is dust, will be an enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy, the +talent, and the resources of Englishmen. + +“But,” said a gentleman to me the other day, “no doubt Mr. Paxton is a +great man, but there is one objection to him that you can never get over, +that is, he is a gardener.” Now that is our case to-night, that he is a +gardener, and we are extremely proud of it. This is a great age, with +all its faults, when a man by the power of his own genius and good sense +can scale such a daring height as Mr. Paxton has reached, and composedly +place his form on the top. This is a great age, when a man impressed +with a useful idea can carry out his project without being imprisoned, or +thumb-screwed, or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that +you, to whom the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the +achievements of our friend are well known, should be anxious to do him +honour by placing him in the position he occupies to-night; and I assure +you, you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in +permitting him to have the opportunity of proposing his health, which +that friend now does most cordially and with all the honours. + + + + +LVI. +THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. +LONDON, MAY 2, 1870. + + +[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in their +new galleries in Piccadilly, the President, Sir F. Grant, and the council +gave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very distinguished company +was present. The dinner took place in the large central room, and covers +were laid for 200 guests. The Prince of Wales acknowledged the toast of +his health and that of the Princess, the Duke of Cambridge responded to +the toast of the army, Mr. Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to the +volunteers, Mr. Motley to “The Prosperity of the United States,” Mr. +Gladstone to “Her Majesty’s Ministers,” the Archbishop of York to, “The +Guests,” and Mr. Dickens to “Literature.” The last toast having been +proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens responded.] + +MR. PRESIDENT, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen,—I beg to +acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great honour of +associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of the +brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not forgetting an +illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy return to it we all hail +with delight, and who now sits—or lately did sit—within a few chairs of +or on your left hand. I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast +on behalf of the sisterhood of literature also, although that “better +half of human nature,” to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful +tribute, is unworthily represented here, in the present state of its +rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, man. + +All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that women, even in +their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great +distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men. Their +emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no +saying how soon they may “push us from our stools” at these tables, or +how soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place of mine, +may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressing another better half of +human nature sitting in the president’s chair. + +The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me to +congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which risen +excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise of a +brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They naturally see +with especial interest the writings and persons of great men—historians, +philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly illustrated around them here. +And they hope that they may modestly claim to have rendered some little +assistance towards the production of many of the pictures in this +magnificent gallery. For without the patient labours of some among them +unhistoric history might have long survived in this place, and but for +the researches and wandering of others among them, the most preposterous +countries, the most impossible peoples, and the absurdest superstitions, +manners, and customs, might have usurped the place of truth upon these +walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir Francis Grant, what unlike +portraits you yourself might have painted if you had been left, with your +sitters, to idle pens, unchecked reckless rumours, and undenounced lying +malevolence. + +I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme (the +recent death of Daniel Maclise) to which his Royal Highness the Prince of +Wales made allusion, and to which the president referred with the +eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first entered the public lists, a +very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune to number amongst +my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been +its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side one by one that I +already, begin to feel like the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells, who +had grown to believe that the only realities around him were the pictures +which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, +was a shadow and a dream. + +For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and most +constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen +art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility +of mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that +they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a +writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the +freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the +frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or +ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, +without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at +the first, “in wit a man, simplicity a child,” no artist, of whatsoever +denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden +memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer +chivalry to the art goddess whom he worshipped. + + [These were the last public words of Charles Dickens.] + + + + +CHARLES DICKENS AS A LETTER-WRITER, AND AS A POET. + + +I.—AS A LETTER-WRITER. + + +IN the graceful but difficult art of letter-writing Charles Dickens has +proved himself as accomplished a master as he has of public speaking, +which the two or three specimens given in our Introduction, together with +the following extracts from his correspondence with two distinguished +friends, Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold, will sufficiently show. + +In the spring of 1841, some months before Mr. Dickens had decided upon +his first visit to the United States, Washington Irving, who was then +personally unknown to him, addressed him a letter, full of warm sympathy +and generous acknowledgment of his genius, and of the pleasure Dickens’s +writings had afforded him. A few extracts from Mr. Dickens’s reply are +given below. + +In February, 1842, Mr. Dickens had the gratification of making the +personal acquaintance of his illustrious correspondent, who was induced +to overcome his objection to public speaking, and to take the chair at a +banquet given in Dickens’s honour by some of the citizens of New York. +Irving, however, entirely broke down in his speech, and could do little +more than propose the toast of the evening. + +There were probably never two men of more congenial mind and common +sympathies than the author of the “Sketch Book,” and the author of +“Pickwick;” and it is pleasant to think that the chance of things should +have brought them together for a time in so unexpected a way. + +In Mr. Dickens’ reply he tells Washington Irving that:— + + “There is no man in the world who could have given me the heartfelt + pleasure you have, by your kind note of the 13th of last month. + There is no living writer—and there are very few among the dead—whose + approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And with everything you + have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart of + hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you could know how + earnestly I write this, you would be glad to read it—as I hope you + will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand I autographically + hold out to you over the broad Atlantic. + + “I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint of an intention + to visit England. I can’t. I have held it at arm’s length, and + taken a bird’s-eye view of it, after reading it a great many times, + but there is no greater encouragement in it this way than on a + microscopic inspection. I should love to go with you—as I have gone, + God knows how often—into Little Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green + Arbour Court, and Westminster Abbey. I should like to travel with + you, outside the last of the coaches, down to Bracebridge Hall. It + would make my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby + gentleman in the oil-cloth hat, and red nose, who sat in the + nine-cornered back parlour of the _Mason’s Arms_; and about Robert + Preston, and the tallow-chandler’s widow, whose sitting-room is + second nature to me; and about all those delightful places and people + that I used to walk about and dream of in the day-time, when a very + small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy. I have a good + deal to say, too, about that dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you can’t + help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much to hear + concerning Moorish legend, and poor, unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich + Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should + show you his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression. + + “I have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and + happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that I rush at once + into full confidence with you, and fall, as it were naturally, and by + the very laws of gravity, into your open arms. Questions come + thronging to my pen as to the lips of people who meet after long + hoping to do so. I don’t know what to say first, or what to leave + unsaid, and am constantly disposed to break off and tell you again + how glad I am this moment has arrived. + + “My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough for your + cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting + gratification it has given me. I hope to have many letters from you, + and to exchange a frequent correspondence. I send this to say so. + After the first two or three, I shall settle down into a connected + style, and become gradually rational. + + “You know what the feeling is, after having written a letter, sealed + it, and sent it off. I shall picture you reading this, and answering + it, before it has lain one night in the post-office. Ten to one that + before the fastest packet could reach New York I shall be writing + again. + + “Do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive letters? I + have my doubts. They get into a dreadful habit of indifference. A + postman, I imagine, is quite callous. Conceive his delivering one to + himself, without being startled by a preliminary double knock!” + +In the spring of 1842 Mr. Dickens was at Washington, from whence he wrote +to Irving:— + + “We passed through—literally passed through—this place again to-day. + I did not come to see you, for I really have not the heart to say + “good-bye” again, and felt more than I can tell you when we shook + hands last Wednesday. + + “You will not be at Baltimore, I fear? I thought, at the time, that + you only said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer. + Wherever you go, God bless you! What pleasure I have had in seeing + and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. I shall never + forget it as long as I live. What _would_ I give, if we could have + but a quiet week together! Spain is a lazy place, and its climate an + indolent one. But if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies, to + think of a man who loves you, and holds communion with your spirit + oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive—leisure from + listlessness, I mean—and will write to me in London, you will give me + an inexpressible amount of pleasure.” + +Wishing, in the summer of 1856, to introduce a relation to Irving, Mr. +Dickens sent a pleasant letter of introduction, wherein he says:— + + “If you knew how often I write to you individually and personally, in + my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note, than + you were in seeing me do my duty by that flowery julep (in what I + dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at + Baltimore. + + “Will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, Mr. B—, who is + associated with a merchant’s house in New York? Of course, he wants + to see you, and know you. How can _I_ wonder at that? How can + anybody? + + “I had a long talk with Leslie at the last Academy dinner (having + previously been with him in Paris), and he told me that you were + flourishing. I suppose you know that he wears a moustache—so do I, + for the matter of that, and a beard too—and that he looks like a + portrait of Don Quixote. + + “Holland House has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it now—twelve + for my lord, and twelve for my lady; and no clergyman coils his leg + up under his chair all dinner-time, and begins to uncurve it when the + hostess goes. No wheeled chair runs smoothly in, with that beaming + face in it; and —’s little cotton pocket-handkerchief helped to make + (I believe) this very sheet of paper. A half-sad, half-ludicrous + story of Rogers, is all I will sully it with. You know, I daresay, + that, for a year or so before his death, he wandered and lost + himself, like one of the Children in the Wood, grown up there and + grown down again. He had Mrs. Procter and Mrs. Carlyle to breakfast + with him one morning—only those two. Both excessively talkative, + very quick and clever, and bent on entertaining him. When Mrs. + Carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about three-quarters of + an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old eyes on Mrs. Procter, + and, pointing to the brilliant discourser with his poor old finger, + said (indignantly), “Who is _she_?” Upon this, Mrs. Procter, cutting + in, delivered—(it is her own story)—a neat oration on the life and + writings of Carlyle, and enlightened him in her happiest and airiest + manner; all of which he heard, staring in the dreariest silence, and + then said (indignantly as before), “And who are you?” + + * * * * * + +WITH few of his literary contemporaries has Mr. Dickens held more cordial +and pleasant relations than with the late DOUGLAS JERROLD. During all +the years of their intercourse that sympathy and friendship existed +between them, which two minds so thoroughly manly and honourable could +hardly help feeling for each other. Dickens, though considerably the +younger of the two, had won earlier the prizes of his profession. But +there was no mean envy and jealousy on the one side, and no mean +assumption on the other. The letters that passed between the two men are +altogether delightful to read. We shall proceed to give, as far as our +space will allow, a few extracts from those of Dickens to Jerrold, {330} +with intercalary elucidations explanatory of the circumstances under +which they were written. + +In the year 1843, Douglas Jerrold wrote to Mr. Dickens from Herne Bay, +where he had taken up his abode in “a little cabin, built up of ivy and +woodbine, and almost within sound of the sea.” + +Mr. Dickens replies:— + + “Herne Bay. Hum! I suppose it’s no worse than any other place in + this weather, but it _is_ watery, rather, isn’t it? In my mind’s + eye, I have the sea in a perpetual state of small-pox, and the chalk + running down hill like town milk. But I know the comfort of getting + to work ‘in a fresh place,’ and proposing pious projects to one’s + self, and having the more substantial advantage of going to bed + early, and getting up ditto, and walking about alone. If there were + a fine day, I should like to deprive you of the last-named happiness, + and to take a good long stroll.” + + * * * * * + +In the summer of 1844, “Come,” wrote Mr. Dickens temptingly, “come and +see me in Italy. Let us smoke a pipe among the vines. I have taken a +little house surrounded by them, and no man in the world should be more +welcome to it than you.” + + * * * * * + +Again from Cremona, (November, 1844,) Dickens writes:— + + “You rather entertained the notion once, of coming to see me at + Genoa. I shall return straight on the ninth of December, limiting my + stay in town to one week. Now, couldn’t you come back with me? The + journey that way is very cheap, and I am sure the gratification to + you would be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and would + put you in a painted room as big as a church, and much more + comfortable. There are pens and ink upon the premises; orange trees, + gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood fires for + evenings, and a welcome worth having.” * * * + + * * * * * + +In 1846, again, Mr. Dickens is off to Switzerland, and still would tempt +Jerrold in his wake. “I wish,” he writes, “you would seriously consider +the expediency and feasibility of coming to Lausanne in the summer or +early autumn. It is a wonderful place to see; and what sort of welcome +you would find I will say nothing about, for I have vanity enough to +believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at home in my +household as in any man’s.” + +Arrived at Lausanne, Mr. Dickens writes that he will be ready for his +guest in June. “We are established here,” he says, “in a perfect doll’s +house, which could be put bodily into the hall of our Italian palazzo. +But it is in the most lovely and delicious situation imaginable, and +there is a spare bedroom wherein we could make you as comfortable as need +be. Bowers of roses for cigar-smoking, arbours for cool punch-drinking, +mountain and Tyrolean countries close at hand, piled-up Alps before the +windows, &c., &c., &c.” Then follow business-like directions for the +journey. + +But it could not be. Jerrold was busy with his paper, and with his +magazine, and felt unable to abandon them even for a few weeks. Well, +could he reach Paris for Christmas, persisted Mr. Dickens, and spend that +merry time with his friend. + +Early in 1847 Jerrold thought he did see his way clear at last to make a +short visit to Paris, where Dickens was still established. “We are +delighted at your intention of coming,” writes the latter, giving the +most minute details of the manner in which the journey was to be +performed; but even this journey was never accomplished. Once only, +after all these promises and invitations—and that for but two or three +days—did Douglas Jerrold escape from the cares of London literary life, +to meet Mr. Dickens at Ostend, on his return from Italy, and have a few +days’ stroll about Belgium. + +The following is an extract from a curious and interesting letter +addressed by Dickens to Douglas Jerrold on the subject of public hanging, +respecting which the latter held conservative opinions:— + + ‘Devonshire Terrace, November 17, 1849. + + “In a letter I have received from G. this morning he quotes a recent + letter from you, in which you deprecate the ‘mystery’ of private + hanging. + + “Will you consider what punishment there is, except death, to which + ‘mystery’ does not attach? Will you consider whether all the + improvements in prisons and punishments that have been made within + the last twenty years have or have not, been all productive of + ‘mystery?’ I can remember very well when the silent system was + objected to as mysterious, and opposed to the genius of English + society. Yet there is no question that it has been a great benefit. + The prison vans are mysterious vehicles; but surely they are better + than the old system of marching prisoners through the streets chained + to a long chain, like the galley slaves in Don Quixote. Is there no + mystery about transportation, and our manner of sending men away to + Norfolk Island, or elsewhere? None in abandoning the use of a man’s + name, and knowing him only by a number? Is not the whole improved + and altered system, from the beginning to end, a mystery? I wish I + could induce you to feel justified in leaving that word to the + platform people, on the strength of your knowledge of what crime was, + and of what its punishments were, in the days when there was no + mystery connected with these things, and all was as open as Bridewell + when Ned Ward went to see the women whipped.” + + + +II.—AS A POET. + + +THERE are several among our foremost prose writers in the present +century, who, possessing high imagination, and a considerable power of +rhythmical expression, have occasionally produced verse of a high though +not of the first order. Lord Macaulay will not be remembered either by +his prize poems, or by his “Lays of Ancient Rome,” but one who wrote such +eloquent prose could hardly fail ignobly when he attempted verse. Thomas +Carlyle, in spite of his energetic denunciation of modern poetry as mere +dilettantism and trifling, has occasionally courted the muse, and were +the original pieces and translations from the German which lie scattered +through his earlier writings, collected together, they would by +themselves form a volume of no mean value. They have a wild, rugged +melody of their own, as have also the occasional verses of Emerson; the +latter bear in many respects a remarkable resemblance to those of Blake. +The author of _Modern Painters_ might also have gained some reputation as +a poet, had he chosen to preserve in a more permanent form his scattered +contributions to annuals. Indeed, it would seem that no eloquent writer +of prose is altogether devoid of the lyric gift if he chooses to exercise +it. The only attempt at poetry by Charles Dickens which is at all known +to the general public is the famous song of “The Ivy Green,” in the +Pickwick Papers. This exquisite little lyric, with its beautiful +refrain, so often wedded to music and so familiar to us all, would alone +suffice to give him no mean rank among contemporary writers of verse. +But in the Comic Opera of the Village Coquettes, {334} to which we +alluded in our Introduction, there were a dozen songs of equal tenderness +and melody, though, as the author has never thought fit to reprint the +little piece, they are now forgotten. + +The first is a song of Harvest-Home, supposed to be sung by a company of +reapers. + +It must be mentioned that this and the other songs had the advantage of +being set to music by John Hullah. The next, “Love is not a feeling to +pass away,” was a great favourite at the time. We quote the first +stanza, the last line of which recalls the little song in the Pickwick +Papers: + + “Love is not a feeling to pass away, + Like the balmy breath of a summer day; + It is not—it cannot be—laid aside; + It is not a thing to forget or hide. + It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me! + As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.” + +The next is a Bacchanalian song, supposed to be sung by a country squire. + +But the gem of all these little lyrics, in our opinion, is that of +“Autumn Leaves,” of which the refrain strikes us as being peculiarly +happy. The reader, however, shall judge for himself, from the following +quotation:— + + “Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; + Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! + How like the hopes of childhood’s day, + Thick clustering on the bough! + How like those hopes is their decay, + How faded are they now! + Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here + Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!” + +The next lyric, “The Child and the Old Man,” was sung by Braham at +different concerts, long after the piece from which it is taken, had been +forgotten, and was almost invariably encored. + +Mr. Dickens’s poetical attempts have not, however, been confined to +song-writing. In 1842 he wrote for a friend a very fine Prologue to a +new tragedy. Mr. Westland Marston came to London in his twenty-first +year, and resolved to try his success in the world of letters: after +writing for several of the second-class magazines, he finished his +tragedy of the “Patrician’s Daughter,” and introduced himself to Mr. +Dickens, who became interested in the play. Struck with the novelty of +“a coat-and-breeches tragedy,” the good-tempered novelist recommended +Macready to produce it, and after some little hesitation, this +distinguished actor took himself the chief character—Mordaunt,—and also +recited a prologue by Mr. Dickens, {336} from which we quote a few lines. + +Impressing the audience strongly with the scope and purpose of what they +had come to see, this prologue thoroughly prepared them for welcome and +applause. The strength and truth of some of the concluding lines address +themselves equally to a larger audience. + + “No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright + Dwells on the poet’s maiden theme to-night. + + * * * * + + Enough for him if in his boldest word + The beating heart of man be faintly stirr’d. + That mournful music, that, like chords which sigh + Through charmed gardens, all who hear it die; + That solemn music he does not pursue, + To distant ages out of human view. + + * * * * + + But musing with a calm and steady gaze + Before the crackling flame of living days, + He hears it whisper, through the busy roar + Of what shall be, and what has been before. + Awake the Present! Shall no scene display + The tragic passion of the passing day? + Is it with man as with some meaner things, + That out of death his solemn purpose springs? + Can this eventful life no moral teach, + Unless he be for aye beyond its reach? + + * * * * + + Awake the Present! What the past has sown + Is in its harvest garner’d, reap’d, and grown. + How pride engenders pride, and wrong breeds wrong, + And truth and falsehood hand in hand along + High places walk in monster-like embrace, + The modern Janus with a double face; + How social usage hath the power to change + Good thought to evil in its highest range, + To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth + The kindling impulse of the glowing youth, + Crushing the spirit in its house of clay,— + Learn from the lesson of the present day. + Not light its import, and not poor its mien, + Yourselves the actors, and your home the scene.” + +We now come to a very curious fact. Mr. R. H. Horne pointed out +twenty-five years ago, {337} that a great portion of the scenes +describing the death of Little Nell in the “Old Curiosity Shop,” will be +found to be written—whether by design or harmonious accident, of which +the author was not even subsequently fully conscious—in blank verse, of +irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, Shelley, and some other poets +have occasionally adopted. The following passage, properly divided into +lines, will stand thus: + + NELLY’S FUNERAL. + + “And now the bell—the bell + She had so often heard by night and day, + And listen’d to with solemn pleasure, + Almost as a living voice— + Rung its remorseless toll for her, + So young, so beautiful, so good. + + “Decrepit age, and vigorous life, + And blooming youth and helpless infancy, + Pour’d forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength + And health, in the full blush + Of promise, the mere dawn of life— + To gather round her tomb. Old men were there, + Whose eyes were dim + And senses failing— + Grandames, who might have died ten years ago, + And still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame, + The palsied, + The living dead in many shapes and forms, + To see the closing of this early grave. + What was the death it would shut in, + To that which still could crawl and creep above it! + + “Along the crowded path they bore her now; + Pure as the new-fall’n snow + That cover’d it; whose day on earth + Had been as fleeting. + Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven + In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, + She pass’d again, and the old church + Received her in its quiet shade.” + +Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words have been +omitted—_in_ and _its_; and “grandames” has been substituted for +“grandmothers.” All that remains is exactly as in the original, not a +single word transposed, and the punctuation the same to a comma. + +Again, take the brief homily that concludes the funeral: + + “Oh! it is hard to take to heart + The lesson that such deaths will teach, + But let no man reject it, + For it is one that all must learn, + And is a mighty, universal Truth. + When Death strikes down the innocent and young, + For every fragile form from which he lets + The parting spirit free, + A hundred virtues rise, + In shapes of mercy, charity, and love, + To walk the world and bless it. + Of every tear + That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves + Some good is born, some gentler nature comes.” + +Not a ward of the original is changed in the above quotation, which is +worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, meeting on the +common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the two most dissimilar men +in the literature of the century are brought into the closest +approximation. + +Something of a similar kind of versification in prose may be discovered +in Chapter LXXVII. of “Barnaby Rudge,” and there is an instance of +successive verses in the Third Part of the “Christmas Carol,” beginning + + “Far in this den of infamous resort.” + +The following is from the concluding paragraph of “Nicholas Nickleby”:— + + “The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave, + Trodden by feet so small and light, + That not a daisy droop’d its head + Beneath their pressure. + Through all the spring and summer time + Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands, + Rested upon the stone.” + +The following stanzas, entitled “A Word in Season,” were contributed by +Mr. Dickens in the winter of 1843 to an annual edited by his friend and +correspondent, the Countess of Blessington. Since that time he has +ceased to write, or at any rate to publish anything in verse. + +This poem savours much of the manner of Robert Browning. Full of wit and +wisdom, and containing some very remarkable and rememberable lines, an +extract from it will fitly close this chapter of our volume. + + A WORD IN SEASON. + BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + “They have a superstition in the East, + That ALLAH, written on a piece of paper, + Is better unction than can come of priest + Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: + Holding, that any scrap which bears that name, + In any characters, its front impress’d on, + Shall help the finder thro’ the purging flame, + And give his toasted feet a place to rest on. + + “So have I known a country on the earth, + Where darkness sat upon the living waters, + And brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth + Were the hard portion of its sons and daughters: + And yet, where they who should have oped the door + Of charity and light, for all men’s finding, + Squabbled for words upon the altar-floor, + And rent The Book, in struggles for the binding.” {341} + + + + +CHARLES DICKENS’S READINGS. +THE FIRST PUBLIC READING. +BY ONE WHO HEARD IT. + + +NOTE.—_In the Introduction to the present volume_, _p._ 42, _it is stated +that Dickens’s_ “FIRST _Reading_” _in public was given at Birmingham in +the Christmas of_ 1853. _The offer to read on this public occasion was +certainly the_ FIRST _which the great novelist made_, _but before the +Christmas had come around he thought proper to give a trial Reading +before a much smaller audience_, _in the quiet little city of +Peterborough_.—ED. + +IT must be sixteen or seventeen years ago—I cannot fix the date exactly, +though the affair made a strong impression on me at the time—that I +witnessed Charles Dickens’s _débût_ as a public reader. The +circumstances surrounding this event were so singular that I am tempted +to recall them. + +Scene, the City of Peterborough—dreamy and quiet enough then, though now +a flourishing railroad terminus—a silent city, with a grand old Norman +cathedral, round which the rooks cawed lazily all day, straggling narrow +streets of brick-built houses, a large Corn Exchange, a Mechanics’ +Institute, and about seven thousand inhabitants. The Mechanics’ +Institute brought it all about. That well-meaning but weak-kneed +organization was, I need hardly say, in debt. Mechanics’ Institutes +always are in debt. That is their chief peculiarity, next to the fact +that they never by any chance have any mechanics among their members. +Our institution was no exception to the rule. On the contrary, it was a +bright and shining example. No mechanics’ institute of its size anywhere +around was so deeply in debt; none was more snobbishly exclusive in its +membership. We had overrun our resources to such an extent that we could +not even pay the rent of the building we occupied, and were in daily +danger of being turned out of doors. Lectures on highly improving +subjects had been tried, but the proceeds did not pay the printer. +Concerts succeeded better, but the committee said they were immoral. We +had given two monster tea meetings to pay off the debt, on which +occasions all the cake required was supplied gratuitously by the members’ +mothers, and all the members and their friends came in by free tickets +and ate it up. Henry Vincent delivered us an oration; George Dawson +propounded metaphysical sophistries for our intellectual mystification; +but with all this we got no better of our troubles—every flounder we made +only plunged us deeper into the mud. At last it was resolved to write to +our Borough members. This was in the good old days of Whig supremacy; +and all the land and all the houses round about us being owned by one +great Whig earl, our borough was privileged to return two members to +represent the opinions of that unprotected earl in Parliament. A +contested election had just come to a close, and the honeyed promises and +grateful pledges of our elected candidates were still fresh in our +memory. So to our members the committee addressed their tearful +entreaties—“deserving institution,”—“valuable agency of +self-improvement,”—“pressing pecuniary embarrassments,” and so forth. +Member No. 1 sent his compliments and a five pound note. Member No. 2 +delayed writing for several days, and then had great pleasure in +informing us that the celebrated author, Mr. Charles Dickens, had kindly +consented to deliver a public reading on our behalf. + +What an excitement it caused in the little city! Mr. Dickens at that +time had made no public appearance as a reader. He had occasionally been +heard of as giving selections from his works to small coteries of friends +or in the private saloon of some distinguished patron of art. But he had +nervously shrunk from any public _débût_, unwilling, so it seemed, to +weaken his reputation as a writer by any possible failure as a reader. +This diffidence had taken so strong a hold of him that it might never +have been overcome but for the insidious persuasions of “our member.” +“Here was an opportunity,” he argued, “for testing the matter without +risk: an antediluvian country town; an audience of farmers’ sons and +daughters, rural shop-keepers, and a few country parsons—if interest +could be excited in the stolid minds of such a Bœotian assemblage, the +success of the reader would be assured wherever the English tongue was +spoken. On the other hand, if failure resulted, none would be the wiser +outside this Sleepy-Hollow circle.” The bait took, and Mr. Dickens +consented to deliver a public reading in aid of the Peterborough +Mechanics’ Institute. He only stipulated that the prices of admission +should be such that every mechanic, if he chose, might come to hear him, +and named two shillings, a shilling, and sixpence as the limit of charge. + +Vain limitation!—a fortnight before the reading every place was taken, +and half a guinea and a guinea were the current rates for front seat +tickets. + +Dickens himself came down and superintended the arrangements, so anxious +was he as to the result. At one end of the large Corn Exchange before +spoken of he had caused to be erected a tall pulpit of red baize, as much +like a Punch and Judy show with the top taken off as anything. This was +to be the reader’s rostrum. But, as the tall red pulpit looked lanky and +very comical stuck up there alone, two dummy pulpits of similar +construction were placed one on each side to bear it company. When the +reader mounted into the middle box nothing was visible of him but his +head and shoulders. So if it be really true, as was stated afterwards by +an indiscreet supernumerary, that Mr. Dickens’s legs shook under him from +first to last, the audience knew nothing of it. The whole character of +the stage arrangements suggested that Mr. Dickens was sure of his head, +but was not quite so sure of his legs. + +It was the _Christmas Carol_ that Mr. Dickens read; the night was +Christmas Eve. As the clock struck the appointed hour, a red, jovial +face, unrelieved by the heavy moustache which the novelist has since +assumed, a broad, high forehead, and a perfectly Micawber-like expanse of +shirt-collar and front appeared above the red baize box, and a full, +sonorous voice rang out the words, “_Marley-was-dead-to-begin-with_”—then +paused, as if to take in the character of the audience. No need of +further hesitation. The voice held all spellbound. Its depth of quiet +feeling when the ghost of past Christmases led the dreamer through the +long-forgotten scenes of his boyhood—its embodiment of burly good nature +when old Fezziwig’s calves were twinkling in the dance—its tearful +suggestiveness when the spirit of Christmases to come pointed to the +nettle-grown, neglected grave of the unloved man—its exquisite pathos by +the death-bed of Tiny Tim, dwell yet in memory like a long-known tune. +That one night’s reading in the quaint little city, so curiously brought +about, so ludicrous almost in its surroundings, committed Mr. Dickens to +the career of a public reader; and he has since derived nearly as large +an income from his readings as from the copyright of his novels. Only he +signally failed to carry out his wish of making his first bow before an +uneducated audience. The vote of thanks which closed the proceedings was +moved by the senior marquis of Scotland and seconded by the heir of the +wealthiest peer in England. + +One other incident suggests itself in this connection. Somewhere about +this time three notable men stood together in a print-shop in this same +city—a singular three-cornered shop, with three fiddles dangling forlorn +and dusty from the ceiling, and everything from piano-fortes to +hair-brushes comprised in its stock-in-trade. They stood there one whole +morning, laughing heartily at the perplexities of the little shopwoman, +who in her nervousness continually transposed the first letters of words, +sometimes with very comical effect. Thus, instead of saying, “Put the +bottle in the cupboard,” she would remark, “Put the cottle in the +bupboard.” The laughing trio were Dickens, Albert Smith, and Layard the +traveller, now our minister to the court of Madrid. I strongly suspect +that the eccentricity of the medical student in Albert Smith’s +_Adventures of Mr. Ledbury_—the student who invites his friends to “poke +a smipe” when he means them to “smoke a pipe”—was born on that occasion, +and that Charles Dickens was robbed by his friend of some thunder which +he intended to use himself. + + * * * * * + +BUT to return to the “Readings.” One glance at the platform is +sufficient to convince the audience that Mr. Dickens thoroughly +appreciates “stage effect.” A large screen of maroon cloth occupies the +background; before it stands a light table of peculiar design, on the +inner left-hand corner of which there peers forth a miniature desk, large +enough to accommodate the reader’s book. On the right hand of the table, +and somewhat below its level, is a shelf, where repose a carafe of water +and a tumbler. This is covered with velvet, somewhat lighter in colour +than the screen. No drapery conceals the table, whereby it is plain that +Mr. Dickens believes in expression of figure as well as of face, and does +not throw away everything but his head and arms, according to the +ordinary habit of ordinary speakers. About twelve feet above the +platform, and somewhat in advance of the table, is a horizontal row of +gas-jets with a tin reflector; and midway in both perpendicular gas-pipes +there is one powerful jet with glass chimney. By this admirable +arrangement, Mr. Dickens stands against a dark background in a frame of +gaslight, which throws out his face and figure to the best advantage. + +He comes! A lithe, energetic man, of medium stature, crosses the +platform at the brisk gait of five miles an hour, and takes his position +behind the table. This is Charles Dickens, whose name has been a +household word for thirty years in England. He has a broad, full brow, a +fine head,—which, for a man of such power and energy, is singularly small +at the base of the brain,—and a cleanly cut profile. + +There is a slight resemblance between Mr. Dickens and the Emperor of the +French in the latter respect, owing mainly to the nose; but it is +unnecessary to add that the faces of the two men are totally different. +Mr. Dickens’s eyes are light-blue, and his mouth and jaw, without having +any claim to beauty, possess a strength that is not concealed by the veil +of iron-gray moustache and generous imperial. His head is but slightly +graced with iron-gray hair, and his complexion is florid. There is a +twinkle in his eye, as he enters, that, like a promissory note, pledges +itself to any amount of fun—within sixty minutes. + +People may think in perusing Mr. Dickens’s books that he must be a man of +large humanity, of forgiving nature, of generous impulses; in hearing him +read they _know_ that he must be such a man. This, of course, does not +alone make a great artist; but equally, of course, it goes a long way +towards making one. To this general and catholic qualification for his +task Mr. Dickens adds special advantages of a high order. He has action +of singular ease and felicity, a remarkably expressive eye, and a +mobility of the facial muscles which belongs to actors of the highest +grade. As in the case of Garrick, it is impossible to say whether love +or terror, humour or despair, are best simulated in a countenance which +expresses each and all on occasion with almost absolute perfection. This +is, no doubt, due in a great measure not to natural qualities only, but +to a varied and peculiar experience. Some will have it that actors, like +poets, are born, not made, but this is only true in a limited and guarded +sense. + + THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. {349} + + “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honour to read to you ‘A Christmas + Carol,’ in four staves. Stave one, Marley’s Ghost. Marley was dead. + There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial + was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief + mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon + ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as + dead as a door-nail.” + +At the close of this paragraph our first impression is that Mr. Dickens’s +voice is limited in power, husky, and naturally monotonous. If he +succeeds in overcoming these defects, it will be by dramatic genius. We +begin to wonder why Mr. Dickens constantly employs the rising inflexion, +and never comes to a full stop; but we are so pleasantly introduced to +Scrooge, that our spirits revive. + +“Foul weather didn’t know where to leave him. The heaviest rain and +snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only +one respect,—they often ‘came down’ handsomely, and Scrooge _never did_.” +Here the magnetic current between reader and listener sets in, and when +Scrooge’s clerk “put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at +the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he +failed;” the connexion is tolerably well established. We see old Scrooge +very plainly, growling and snarling at his pleasant nephew; and when that +nephew invites that uncle to eat a Christmas dinner with him, and Mr. +Dickens goes on to relate that Scrooge said “he would see him—yes, I am +sorry to say he did,—he went the whole length of the expression, and said +he would see him in that extremity first.” He makes one dive at our +sense of humour, and takes it captive. Mr. Dickens is Scrooge; he is the +two portly gentlemen on a mission of charity; he is twice Scrooge when, +upon one of the portly gentlemen remarking that many poor people would +rather die than go to the workhouse, he replies: “If they would rather +die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population;” and +thrice Scrooge, when, turning upon his clerk, he says, “You’ll want all +day to-morrow, I suppose?” It is the incarnation of a hard-hearted, +hard-fisted, hard-voiced miser. + +“If quite convenient, sir.” A few words, but they denote Bob Cratchit in +three feet of comforter exclusive of fringe, in well-darned, thread-bare +clothes, with a mild, frightened voice, so thin that you can see through +it! + +Then there comes the change when Scrooge, upon going home, “saw in the +knocker, Marley’s face!” Of course Scrooge saw it, because the +expression of Mr. Dickens’s face makes us see it “with a dismal light +about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.” There is good acting in +this scene, and there is fine acting when the dying flame leaps up as +though it cried, “I know him! Marley’s ghost!” With what gusto Mr. +Dickens reads that description of Marley, and how, “looking through his +waistcoat, Scrooge _could see the two buttons on his coat behind_.” + +Nothing can be better than the rendering of the Fezziwig party, in Stave +Two. You behold Scrooge gradually melting into humanity; Scrooge, as a +joyous apprentice; that model of employers, Fezziwig; Mrs. Fezziwig “one +vast substantial smile,” and all the Fezziwigs. Mr. Dickens’s expression +as he relates how “in came the housemaid with _her cousin_ the baker, and +in came the cook _with her brother’s particular friend the milkman_,” is +delightfully comic, while his complete rendering of that dance where “all +were top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them,” is owing to +the inimitable action of his hands. They actually perform upon the +table, as if it were the floor of Fezziwig’s room, and every finger were +a leg belonging to one of the Fezziwig’s family. This feat is only +surpassed by Mr. Dickens’s illustration of Sir Roger de Coverley, as +interpreted by Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, when “a positive light appeared to +issue from Fezziwig’s calves,” and he “cut so deftly that he appeared to +wink with his legs!” It is a maze of humour. Before the close of the +stave, Scrooge’s horror at sight of the young girl once loved by him, and +put aside for gold, shows that Mr. Dickens’s power is not purely comic. + +But the best of all, is Stave Three. We distinctly see that “Cratchit” +family. There are the potatoes that “knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid +to be let out and peeled;” there is Mrs. Cratchit, fluttering and +cackling like a motherly hen with a young brood of chickens; and there is +everybody. The way those two young Cratchits hail Martha, and +exclaim—“There’s _such_ a goose, Martha!” can never be forgotten. By +some conjuring trick, Mr. Dickens takes off his own head and puts on a +Cratchit’s. Later Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim come in. Assuredly it is +Bob’s thin voice that pipes out, “Why, where’s our Martha?” and it is +Mrs. Cratchit who shakes her head and replies, “Not coming!” Then Bob +relates how Tiny Tim behaved: “as good as gold and better. Somehow he +gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest +things you have ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the +people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be +pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas-day, who made lame beggars +walk, and blind men see.” There is a volume of pathos in these words, +which are the most delicate and artistic rendering of the whole reading. + +Ah, that Christmas dinner! We feel as if we were eating every morsel of +it. There are “the two young Cratchits,” who “crammed spoons into their +mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn;” there is +Tiny Tim, who “beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly +cried, ‘Hoorray,’” in such a still, small voice. And there is that +goose! I see it with my naked eye. And O the pudding! “A smell like a +washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a +pastry-cook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to +that! That was the pudding.” Mr. Dickens’s sniffing and smelling of +that pudding would make a starving family believe that they had swallowed +it, holly and all. It is infectious. + +What Mr. Dickens _does_ is very frequently infinitely better than +anything he says, or the way he says it; yet the doing is as delicate and +intangible as the odour of violets, and can be no better described. +Nothing of its kind can be more touchingly beautiful than the manner in +which Bob Cratchit—previous to proposing “a merry Christmas to us all, my +dears, God bless us”—stoops down, with tears in his eyes and places Tiny +Tim’s withered little hand in his, “as if he loved the child, and wished +to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.” +It is pantomime worthy of the finest actor. + +Admirable is Mrs. Cratchit’s ungracious drinking to Scrooge’s health, and +Martha’s telling how she had seen a lord, and how he “was much about as +tall as Peter!” + +It is a charming cabinet picture, and so likewise is the glimpse of +Christmas at Scrooge’s nephew’s. The plump sister is “satisfactory, O +perfectly satisfactory,” and Topper is a magnificent fraud on the +understanding; a side-splitting fraud. We see Fred get off the sofa, and +_stamp_ at his own fun, and we hear the plump sister’s voice when she +guesses the wonderful riddle, “It’s your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!” +Altogether, Mr. Dickens is better than any comedy. + +What a change in Stave Four! There sit the gray-haired rascal “Old Joe,” +with his crooning voice; Mr. Dilber, and those robbers of dead men’s +shrouds; there lies the body of the plundered, unknown man; there sit the +Cratchits weeping over Tiny Tim’s death, a scene that would be beyond all +praise were Bob’s cry, “My little, little child!” a shade less dramatic. +Here, and only here, Mr. Dickens forgets the nature of Bob’s voice, and +employs all the power of his own, carried away apparently by the +situation. Bob would not thus give way to his feelings. Finally, there +is Scrooge, no longer a miser, but a human being, screaming at the +“conversational” boy in Sunday clothes, to buy him the prize turkey “that +never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped +’em off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.” There is Bob Cratchit +behind time, trying to overtake nine o’clock, “that fled fifteen minutes +before.” There is Scrooge poking Bob in the ribs, and vowing he will +raise his salary; and there is at last happiness for all, as Tiny Tim +exclaims, “God bless us every one!” + +It is difficult to see how the “Christmas Carol” can be read and acted +better. The only improvement possible is in the ghosts, who are, +perhaps, too monotonous; a way ghosts have when they return to earth. +Solemnity and monotony are not synonymous terms, yet every theatrical +ghost insists that they are, and Mr. Dickens is no exception to the rule. +If monotony is excusable in anyone, however, it is in him; for, when one +actor is obliged to represent _twenty-three different characters_, giving +to everyone an individual tone, he may be pardoned if his ghosts are not +colloquial. + +Talk of sermons and churches! There never was a more beautiful sermon +than this of “The Christmas Carol.” Sacred names do not necessarily mean +sacred things. + + SIKES AND NANCY. {353a} + +“Although amongst his friends, and such of the outside world as had been +admitted to the private performances of the Tavistock House theatricals, +Mr. Dickens was known to possess much dramatic power, it was not until +within the last few weeks {353b} that he found scope for its exhibition +on the platform. Although the characters in his previous readings had +each a distinct and defined individuality—and in true artistic spirit the +comparatively insignificant characters have as much finish bestowed upon +their representation as the heroes and heroines, _e.g._ the fat man on +’Change who replies ‘God knows,’ to the query as to whom Scrooge had left +his money—a bit of perfect Dutch painting—one could not help feeling that +the personation was but a half-personation given under restraint; that +the reader was ‘underacting,’ as it is professionally termed, and one +longed to see him give his dramatic genius full vent. That wish has now +been realised. When Mr. Dickens called round him some half-hundred of +his friends and acquaintances on whose discrimination and knowledge of +public audiences he had reliance, and when, after requesting their frank +verdict on the experiment, he commenced the new reading, ‘Sikes and +Nancy,’ until, gradually warming with excitement, he flung aside his book +and acted the scene of the murder, shrieked the terrified pleadings of +the girl, growled the brutal savagery of the murderer, brought looks, +tones, gestures simultaneously into play to illustrate his meaning, there +was no one, not even of those who had known him best, or who believed in +him most, but was astonished at the power and the versatility of his +genius. + +“Grandest of all the characters stands out Fagin, the Jew. The voice is +husky and with a slight lisp, but there is no nasal intonation; a bent +back, but no shoulder shrug; the conventional attributes are omitted, the +conventional words are never spoken; and the Jew fence, crafty and +cunning even in his bitter vengeance, is there before us, to the life. + +“Next comes Nancy. Readers of the old editions of ‘Oliver Twist’ will +doubtless recollect how desperately difficult it was to fight against the +dreadful impression which Mr. George Cruikshank’s picture of Nancy left +upon the mind, and how it required all the assistance of the author’s +genius to preserve interest in the stunted, squab, round-faced trull whom +the artist had depicted. Accurately delineating every other character in +the book, and excelling all his previous and subsequent productions in +his etching of ‘Fagin in the Condemned Cell,’ Mr. Cruikshank not merely +did not convey the right idea of Nancy, which would have been bad enough, +but conveyed the wrong one, which was worse. No such ill-favoured slut +would have found a protector in Sikes, who amongst his set and in his +profession was a man of mark. We all know Nancy’s position; but just +because we know it we are certain she must have had some amount of +personal comeliness, which Mr. Cruikshank has entirely denied her. In +the reading we get none of the common side of her character, which peeps +forth occasionally in the earlier volumes. She is the heroine, doing +evil that good may come of it—breaking the trust reposed in her that the +man she loves and they amongst whom she has lived may be brought to +better lives. With the dread shadow of impending death upon her, she is +thrillingly earnest, almost prophetic. Thus, in accordance with a +favourite custom of the author, during the interview on the steps at +London Bridge, not only does the girl’s language rise from the tone of +everyday life and become imbued with dramatic imagery and fervour, but +that eminently prosaic old person, Mr. Brownlow, becomes affected in the +same manner, saying, ‘before this river wakes to life,’ and indulging in +other romantic types and metaphors. This may be scarcely life-like, but +it is very effective in the reading, enchaining the attention of the +audience and forming a fine contrast to the simple pathos of the dialogue +in the murder-scene, every word of which is in the highest degree natural +and well-placed. It is here, of course, that the excitement of the +audience is wrought to its highest pitch, and that the acme of the +actor’s art is reached. The raised hands, the bent-back head, are good; +but shut your eyes, and the illusion is more complete. Then the cries +for mercy, the ‘Bill! dear Bill! for dear God’s sake!’ uttered in tones +in which the agony of fear prevails even over the earnestness of the +prayer, the dead, dull voice as hope departs, are intensely real. When +the pleading ceases, you open your eyes in relief, in time to see the +impersonation of the murderer seizing a heavy club, and striking his +victim to the ground. + +“Artistically speaking, the story of Sikes and Nancy ends at the point +here indicated. Throughout the entire scene of the murder, from the +entrance of Sikes into the house until the catastrophe, the silence was +intense—the old phrase ‘a pin might have been heard to drop,’ could have +been legitimately employed. It was a great study to watch the faces of +the people—eager, excited, intent—permitted for once in a life-time to be +natural, forgetting to be British, and cynical, and unimpassioned. The +great strength of this feeling did not last into the concluding five +minutes. The people were earnest and attentive; but the wild excitement +so seldom seen amongst us died as Nancy died, and the rest was somewhat +of an anti-climax. + +“No one who appreciates great acting should miss this scene. It will be +a treat such as they have not had for a long time, such as, from all +appearances, they are not likely to have soon again. To them the +earnestness and force, the subtlety, the _nuances_, the delicate lights +and shades of the great dramatic art, will be exhibited by one of the +first—if not the first—of its living masters; while those of far less +intellectual calibre will understand the vigour of the entire +performance, and be specially amused at the facial and vocal dexterity by +which the crafty Fagin is, instantaneously changed into the +chuckle-headed Noah Claypole.” + + * * * * * + +Mr. Dickens, as a reader, is an artist of the very first rank; and to say +that his reading of the choicest portions of his own works is actually as +fine in its way as the works themselves in theirs, is a compliment at +once exceedingly high and richly deserved. + +During his late visit to America, the great men of the land travelled +from far and near to be present at the readings; the poet Longfellow went +three nights in succession, and he afterwards declared to a friend that +they were “the most delightful evenings of his life.” + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{7} This first Sketch was entitled, “_Mrs. Joseph Porter_, ‘_over the +Way_.’” The _Monthly Magazine_ in which this appeared was published by +Cochrane and M‘Crone, and must not be confounded with _The New Monthly +Magazine_, published by Colburn. + +{8a} This was the first paper in which Dickens assumed the pseudonym of +“Boz.” The previous sketches appeared anonymously. + +{8b} Of these Sketches two volumes were collected and published by +Macrone (with illustrations by George Cruikshank), in February, 1836, and +a third in the December following. + +{10} The pamphlet was entitled _Sunday wider Three Heads_: _As it is_; +_as Sabbath Bills would make it_; _as it might be made_. By Timothy +Sparks. London, Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 49 (with illustrations by +Hablot K. Browne). + +{11} “Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” edited by _Boz_. With illustrations +by George Cruikshank. In two volumes. London, R. Bentley. 1838. + +{15} “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” Vol. I. p. 72. + +{18a} “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” Vol. I., pp. 98, 99. + +{18b} June 25, 1841. + +{24} Kate Field. + +{26} _Evenings of a Working Man_, by John Overs, with a Preface relative +to the Author, by Charles Dickens. London: Newby, 1844. + +{27} _Bentley’s Miscellany_, edited by Mr. Dickens during the years +1837–38. + +{28} Dr. Elliotson. + +{29} We are told that Overs did not live long after the publication of +his little book: “the malady under which he was labouring, terminated +fatally the following October.” + +{30} _Fraser’s Magazine_, July, 1844. + +{31} These five volumes were all gracefully illustrated by John Leech, +Daniel Maclise, Clarkson Stanfield, Sir Edwin Landseer, Richard Doyle, +and others; and a set of the original issue is now much sought after, and +not easily met with. + +{33} “Unto this Last.” Chap. I. + +{34} The following instances are, by kind permission, selected from an +admirable article upon this subject, which appeared in the “Temple Bar” +Magazine for September, 1869. + +{53} Sir David Wilkie died at sea, on board the _Oriental_, off +Gibraltar, on the 1st of June, 1841, whilst on his way back to England. +During the evening of the same day his body was committed to the +deep.—ED. + +{55} The _Britannia_ was the vessel that conveyed Mr. Dickens across the +Atlantic, on his first visit to America.—ED. + +{61} _Master Humphrey’s Clock_, under which title the two novels of +Barnaby Rudge and The Old Curiosity Shop originally appeared.—ED. + +{63} “I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection +of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, whom I +can never remember with indifference. We left it with no little regret.” +_American Notes_ (Lond. 1842). Vol. I, p. 182. + +{70} See the _Life and Letters of Washington Irving_ (Lond. 1863), p. +644, where Irving speaks of a letter he has received “from that glorious +fellow Dickens, in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my heartfelt +delight with his writings, and my yearnings toward himself.” See also +the letter itself, in the second division of this volume.—ED. + +{88} _TENNYSON_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, then newly published in +collection of 1842.—ED. + +{95} “That this meeting, while conveying its cordial thanks to Charles +Dickens, Esq., for his presence this evening, and for his able and +courteous conduct as President, cannot separate without tendering the +warmest expression of its gratitude and admiration to one whose writings +have so loyally inculcated the lessons of benevolence and virtue, and so +richly contributed to the stores of public pleasure and instructions.” + +{98} The Duke of Devonshire. + +{105} _Charlotte Corday going to Execution_. + +{113} The above is extracted from Mrs. Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of +Foreign Lands,”, a book in which her eaves-dropping propensities were +already developed in a sufficiently ugly form.—ED. + +{150} Alas! the “many years” were to be barely six, when the speaker was +himself destined to write some memorial pages commemorative of his +illustrious friend (Cornhill Magazine, February, 1864.)—ED. + +{153} Mr. Henry Dodd had proposed to give five acres of land in +Berkshire, but, in consequence of his desiring to attach certain +restrictions, after a long and unsatisfactory correspondence, the +Committee, on 13th January following, rejected the offer. +(_Communicated_.) + +{161} Claude Melnotte in _The Lady of Lyons_, Act iii. sc. 2. + +{177} Mr. B. Webster. + +{220} _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 1. + +{239} Robert Browning: _Bells and Pomegranates_. + +{242} R. H. + +{250} _Carlyle’s French Revolution_. Book X., Chapter I. + +{259} Henry Thomas Buckle. + +{260} This and the Speeches which follow were accidentally omitted in +their right places. + +{263} Hazlitt’s Round Table (Edinburgh, 1817, vol ii., p. 242), _On +Actors and Acting_. + +{274} _Vide suprà_, _p._ 268. + +{292} An allusion to a well-known Sonnet of Wordsworth, beginning—“The +world is too much with us—late and soon,” &c.—ED. + +{303} Alluding to the forthcoming serial story of _Edwin Drood_. + +{309} The Honourable John Lothrop Motley. + +{311} February 26th, 1851. Mr. Macready’s Farewell Benefit at Drury +Lane Theatre, on which occasion he played the part of Macbeth.—ED. + +{312} MACBETH, Act I., sc. 7. + +{316} The Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Longley). + +{330} These passages are given by kind permission of Mr. Blanchard +Jerrold, who has obligingly allowed us to make free use of this portion +of the Memoir of his father. We refer the reader who is desirous of +seeing more, to that ably-written biography.—ED. + +{334} _The Village Coquettes_: _a Comic Opera in Two Acts_. By CHARLES +DICKENS. The music by John Hullah. London: Richard Bentley, 1836. + +{336} Produced for the first time at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on +Saturday, December 10, 1842. We would fain have given this fine prologue +entire, had we felt authorized in doing so. + +{337} In “A New Spirit of the Age.” (Lond., 1844), Vol. I., pp. 65–68. + +{341} _The Keepsake for_ 1844. _Edited by the Countess of Blessington_, +pp. 73, 74. + +{349} The reader who desires to further renew his recollections of Mr. +Dickens’s Readings is referred to Miss Kate Field’s admirable “Pen +Photographs,” published in Boston, in 1868. The little volume is a +valuable estimate of the readings recently given in America. + +{353a} Extracted (by kind permission) from a criticism by Mr. Edmund +Yates. + +{353b} Written in 1868. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +******* This file should be named 824-0.txt or 824-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/2/824 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Speeches of Charles Dickens + Literary and Social + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: December 18, 2014 [eBook #824] +[This file was first posted on March 1, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1880 Chatto and Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>SPEECHES<br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>LITERARY AND SOCIAL</i></span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +CHARLES DICKENS</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WITH +CHAPTERS ON “CHARLES DICKENS AS A LETTER WRITER,</span><br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">POET, AND PUBLIC READER.”</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Drawing of Charles Dickens" +title= +"Drawing of Charles Dickens" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A NEW EDITION</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall"><b>London</b></span><br /> +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1880</span></p> +<h2><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span> was born at +Landport, Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. At that time his +father, Mr. John Dickens, held an office in the Navy Pay +Department, the duties of which obliged him to reside alternately +at the principal naval stations of England. But on the +conclusion of peace in 1815 a considerable reduction was made by +Government in this branch of the public service. Mr. John +Dickens, among others, was pensioned off, and he removed to +London with his wife and children, when his son Charles was +hardly four years of age.</p> +<p>No doubt the varied bustling scenes of life witnessed by +Charles Dickens in his early years, had an influence on his mind +that gave him a taste for observing the manners and mental +peculiarities of different classes of people engaged in the +active pursuits of life, and <a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>quickened a naturally lively +perception of the ridiculous, for which he was distinguished even +in boyhood.</p> +<p>It is curious to observe how similar opportunities of becoming +acquainted practically with life, and the busy actors on its +varied scenes, in very early life, appear to influence the minds +of thinking and imaginative men in after-years. +Goldsmith’s pedestrian excursions on the Continent, +Bulwer’s youthful rambles on foot in England, and +equestrian expeditions in France, and Maclise’s extensive +walks in boyhood over his native county, and the mountains and +valleys of Wicklow a little later, were fraught with similar +results.</p> +<p>Charles Dickens was intended by his father to be an +attorney. Nature and Mr. John Dickens happily differed on +that point. London law may have sustained little injury in +losing Dickens for “a limb.” English literature +would have met with an irreparable loss, had she been deprived of +him whom she delights to own as a favourite son.</p> +<p>Dickens, having decided against the law, began his career in +“the gallery,” as a reporter on <i>The True Sun</i>; +and from the first made himself distinguished and distinguishable +among “the corps,” for his ability, promptness, and +punctuality.</p> +<p>Remaining for a short term on the staff of this periodical, he +seceded to <i>The Mirror of Parliament</i>, which was started +with the express object of furnishing <i>verbatim</i> reports of +the debates. It only lived, however, for two sessions.</p> +<p>The influence of his father, who on settling in the <a +name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>metropolis, had +become connected with the London press, procured for Charles +Dickens an appointment as short-hand reporter on the <i>Morning +Chronicle</i>. To this period of his life he has made some +graceful and interesting allusions in a speech delivered at the +Second Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, about five years +ago.</p> +<p>It was in <i>The Monthly Magazine</i> of January, 1834, before +he had quite attained his twenty-second year, that Charles +Dickens made his first appearance in print as a story-teller. <a +name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7" +class="citation">[7]</a> Neither the editor of the +magazine, nor the readers, nor even the ardent and gratified +young author himself (who has described in the preface to the +“Pickwick Papers” his sensations on finding his +little contribution accepted), then dreamt that he would become +in five short years from that time one of the most popular and +widely-read of English authors, that his name would shortly +become familiar as a household word, and that his praise would be +on every tongue on both sides of the Atlantic.</p> +<p>Encouraged by his success, Charles Dickens continued to send +sketches in the same vein, and for the next twelve months was a +tolerably constant contributor <a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>to the <i>Magazine</i>. All, or +nearly all, of these little papers were reprinted in the +collection of <i>Sketches by Boz</i>; but as it will perhaps be +interesting to some of our readers to trace their original +appearance in the magazine, we give a list of them +here:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>February, 1834,</p> +</td> +<td><p>Horatio Sparkins.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>Marriage a-la-Mode.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>April „</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Bloomsbury Christening.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>May „</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Boarding-House.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>August „</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Ibid.</i> (No II.) <a name="citation8a"></a><a +href="#footnote8a" class="citation">[8a]</a></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>September „</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Goings-on at Bramsby Hall.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>October „</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Steam Excursion.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>January, 1835.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>February „</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Ib.</i> Chapter Second.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>A similar series was afterwards contributed to the evening +edition of <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>, <a +name="citation8b"></a><a href="#footnote8b" +class="citation">[8b]</a> then edited by Mr. John Black, and on +which Dickens was engaged as parliamentary reporter.</p> +<p>While writing the “Sketches,” a strong inclination +towards the stage induced Mr. Charles Dickens to test his powers +as a dramatist, and his first piece, a farce <a +name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>called <i>The +Strange Gentleman</i>, was produced at the St. James’s +Theatre on the opening night of the season, September 29, +1836. The late Mr. Harley was the hero of the farce, which +was received with great favour. This was followed by an +opera, called <i>The Village Coquettes</i>, for which Mr. Hullah +composed the music, and which was brought out at the same +establishment, on Tuesday, December 6, 1836. The quaint +humour, unaffected pathos, and graceful lyrics of this production +found prompt recognition, and the piece enjoyed a prosperous +run. <i>The Village Coquettes</i> took its title from two +village girls, Lucy and Rose, led away by vanity, coquetting with +men above them in station, and discarding their humble, though +worthy lovers. Before, however, it is too late they see +their error, and the piece terminates happily. Miss +Rainforth and Miss Julia Smith were the heroines, and Mr. Bennet +and Mr. Gardner were their betrothed lovers. Braham was the +Lord of the Manor, who would have led astray the fair Lucy. +There was a capital scene, where he was detected by Lucy’s +father, played by Strickland, urging an elopement. Harley +had a trifling part in the piece, rendered highly amusing by his +admirable acting.</p> +<p>On March 6, 1837, was brought out at the St. James’s +Theatre a farce, called <i>Is She His Wife</i>; <i>or</i>, +<i>Something Singular</i>, in which Harley played the principal +character, Felix Tapkins, a flirting bachelor, and sang a song in +the character of Pickwick, “written expressly for him by +Boz.”</p> +<p><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>Under +the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks Charles Dickens published about +this time a wholesome, wise, and cleverly written little pamphlet +against Sabbatarianism, in which he cogently and forcibly +advocated more liberal views respecting the observance of Sunday +than generally obtain in this country. <a +name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10" +class="citation">[10]</a></p> +<p>In March, 1836, appeared the first number of +“Pickwick,” with illustrations by Seymour. It +was continued in monthly shilling numbers until its completion, +and this has been Mr. Dickens’s favourite and usual form of +publication ever since. The success and popularity of the +work—which, in freshness and vigour, he has never surpassed +in his later and maturer writings—were unmistakeable. +Several playwrights dramatised it, with more or less success; and +a swarm of obscure scribblers flooded the town with imitations +and sequels, which, like Avanelleda’s second part of +“Don Quixote,” came mostly to grief, and were quickly +forgotten.</p> +<p>Before the work had reached its third number, the talented +artist who had undertaken the illustrations, and who has +immortalised the features of Mr. Pickwick, was unfortunately +removed by death, and Mr. Hablot Browne (the well-known +<i>Phiz</i>) was chosen to replace him, and continued to +illustrate most of Mr. Dickens’s novels for many years +after. During the <a name="page11"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 11</span>years 1837–1838, Mr. Dickens +carried on the editorship of <i>Bentley’s Miscellany</i>, +where his novel of “Oliver Twist” (illustrated by +George Cruikshank) first appeared. To this magazine, during +the time that he conducted it, he also contributed some humorous +papers, entitled “Full Report of the Meetings of the Mudfog +Association for the Advancement of Everything.” But, +finding his editorial office irksome, he soon abandoned it.</p> +<p>During his engagement with Mr. Bentley, he edited and partly +wrote the “Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” <a +name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11" +class="citation">[11]</a> a book now almost forgotten, though not +without passages of pathos and humour. Dickens, in the +introductory chapter (dated February, 1838), gives the following +account of his share in the work:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“For about a year before his death, Grimaldi +was employed in writing a full account of his life and +adventures, and as people who write their own lives often find +time to extend them to a most inordinate length, it is no wonder +that his account of himself was exceedingly voluminous.</p> +<p>“This manuscript was confided to Mr. Thomas Egerton +Wilks, to alter and revise, with a view to its publication. +While he was thus engaged, Grimaldi died; and Mr. Wilks having, +by the commencement of September (1837), concluded his labours, +offered <a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>the manuscript to Mr. Bentley, by whom it was shortly +afterwards purchased.</p> +<p>“The present editor of these volumes has felt it +necessary to say thus much in explanation of their origin. +His own share in them is stated in a few words. Being much +struck by several incidents in the manuscript—such as the +description of Grimaldi’s infancy, the burglary, the +brother’s return from sea, and many other +passages—and thinking that they might be related in a more +attractive manner, he accepted a proposal from the publisher to +edit the book, and <i>has</i> edited it to the best of his +ability, altering its form throughout, and making such other +alterations as he conceived would improve the narration of the +facts, without any departure from the facts +themselves.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His next work was “Nicholas Nickleby,” published +in monthly numbers. The following passage from the original +preface, which is only to be found in the old editions, alludes +to the great success that attended this story:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It only now remains for the writer of these +pages, with that feeling of regret with which we leave almost any +pursuit that has for a long time occupied us and engaged our +thoughts, and which is naturally augmented in such a case as +this, when that pursuit has been surrounded by all that could +animate and cheer him on—it only now remains for him, +before abandoning his task, to bid his readers +farewell.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>This +was followed by “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” the +publication of which, in weekly numbers, with illustrations by +Cattermole and Hablot Browne, was commenced in April, 1840. +“Master Humphrey’s Clock” comprised the two +novels of “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby +Rudge,” which are now published in a separate form, +stripped of the introductory portion relating to Master Humphrey, +and of the intercalary chapters in which Mr. Pickwick and the two +Wellers appear again on the scene. It was pleasant to meet +once more these familiar humorous creations, and it may be a +matter for regret that this portion of the book has been +consigned to oblivion. But the author considered that these +passages served only to interrupt the continuity of the main +story, and they were consequently eliminated.</p> +<p>These three characters (the Wellers and Mr. Pickwick) have all +the same raciness and inexhaustible humour in this sequel as in +the work in which we were first introduced to them. As the +original edition of the work we are alluding to is now somewhat +rare, the reader may not be displeased to have a few specimens +laid before him. Here is Mr. Weller senior’s opinion +of railways:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I con-sider,” said Mr. Weller, +“that the rail is unconstitootional and an inwaser o’ +priwileges, and I should wery much like to know what that +’ere old Carter as once stood up for our liberties and wun +’em too—I should like to know wot he vould say if he +wos alive now, to Englishmen being locked up with <a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>widders, or +with anybody, again their wills. Wot a old Carter would +have said, a old Coachman may say, and I as-sert that in that +pint o’ view alone, the rail is an inwaser. As to the +comfort, vere’s the comfort o’ sittin’ in a +harm cheer lookin’ at brick walls or heaps o’ mud, +never comin’ to a public house, never seein’ a glass +o’ ale, never goin’ through a pike, never +meetin’ a change o’ no kind (horses or othervise), +but alvays comin’ to a place, ven you come to one at all, +the wery picter o’ the last, vith the same p’leesemen +standing about, the same blessed old bell a ringin’, the +same unfort’nate people standing behind the bars, a +waitin’ to be let in; and everythin’ the same except +the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the last +name and vith the same colors. As to the <i>h</i>onour and +dignity o’ travelling vere can that be vithout a coachman; +and wot’s the rail to sich coachmen and guards as is +sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a insult? +As to the pace, wot sort o’ pace do you think I, Tony +Veller, could have kept a coach goin’ at, for five hundred +thousand pound a mile, paid in adwance afore the coach was on the +road? And as to the ingein—a nasty wheezin’, +creaking, gasping, puffin, bustin’ monster, alvays out +o’ breath, vith a shiny green and gold back, like a +unpleasant beetle in that ’ere gas magnifier—as to +the ingein as is alvays a pourin’ out red hot coals at +night, and black smoke in the day, the sensiblest thing it does +in my opinion, is, ven there’s somethin’ in the vay +and it sets up that ’ere frightful scream <a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>vich seems to +say, ‘Now here’s two hundred and forty passengers in +the wery greatest extremity o’ danger, and here’s +their two hundred and forty screams in vun!’” <a +name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15" +class="citation">[15]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>While Mr. Pickwick is listening to Master Humphrey’s +story above, the Wellers are entertained by the housekeeper in +the kitchen, where they find Mr. Slithers, the barber, to whom +Sam Weller, drawing extensively we may suppose upon his lively +imagination, relates the following anecdote:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I never knew,” said Sam, fixing his +eyes in a ruminative manner upon the blushing barber, “I +never knew but von o’ your trade, but <i>he</i> wos worth a +dozen, and wos indeed dewoted to his callin’!”</p> +<p>“Was he in the easy shaving way, sir,” inquired +Mr. Slithers; “or in the cutting and curling +line?”</p> +<p>“Both,” replied Sam; “easy shavin’ was +his natur, and cuttin’ and curlin’ was his pride and +glory. His whole delight wos in his trade. He spent +all his money in bears and run in debt for ’em besides, and +there they wos a growling avay down in the front cellar all day +long, and ineffectooally gnashing their teeth, vile the grease +o’ their relations and friends wos being re-tailed in +gallipots in the shop above, and the first-floor winder wos +ornamented vith their heads; not to speak o’ the dreadful +aggrawation it must have been to ’em to see a man alvays a +walkin’ up and down the pavement outside, vith the portrait +of a <a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>bear +in his last agonies, and underneath in large letters, +‘Another fine animal wos slaughtered yesterday at +Jinkinson’s!’ Hows’ever, there they wos, +and there Jinkinson wos, till he wos took wery ill with some +inn’ard disorder, lost the use of his legs, and wos +confined to his bed, vere he laid a wery long time, but sich wos +his pride in his profession even then, that wenever he wos worse +than usual, the doctor used to go down stairs and say, +‘Jinkinson’s wery low this mornin’; we must +give the bears a stir;’ and as sure as ever they stirred +’em up a bit, and made ’em roar, Jinkinson opens his +eyes if he wos ever so bad, calls out, ‘There’s the +bears!’ and rewives agin. Vun day the doctor +happenin’ to say, ‘I shall look in as usual to-morrow +mornin’,’ Jinkinson catches hold of his hand and +says, ‘Doctor,’ he says, ‘will you grant me one +favor?’ ‘I will, Jinkinson,’ says the +doctor. ‘Then, doctor,’ says Jinkinson, +‘vill you come un-shaved, and let me shave +you?’ ‘I will,’ says the doctor. +‘God bless you,’ says Jinkinson. Next day the +doctor came, and arter he’d been shaved all skilful and +reg’lar, he says, ‘Jinkinson,’ he says, +‘it’s wery plain this does you good. +Now,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a coachman as has got +a beard that it ’d warm your heart to work on, and though +the footman,’ he says, ‘hasn’t got much of a +beard, still he’s a trying it on vith a pair o’ +viskers to that extent, that razors is christian charity. +If they take it in turns to mind the carriage wen it’s a +waitin’ below,’ he says, ‘wot’s to hinder +you from operatin’ on both of ’em ev’ry day <a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>as well as +upon me? you’ve got six children,’ he says, +‘wot’s to hinder you from shavin’ all their +heads, and keepin’ ’em shaved? You’ve got +two assistants in the shop down-stairs, wot’s to hinder you +from cuttin’ and curlin’ them as often as you +like? Do this,’ he says, ‘and you’re a +man agin.’ Jinkinson squeedged the doctor’s +hand, and begun that wery day; he kept his tools upon the bed, +and wenever he felt his-self gettin’ worse, he turned to at +vun o’ the children, who wos a runnin’ about the +house vith heads like clean Dutch cheeses, and shaved him +agin. Vun day the lawyer come to make his vill; all the +time he wos a takin’ it down, Jinkinson was secretly a +clippin’ avay at his hair vith a large pair of +scissors. ‘Wot’s that ’ere snippin’ +noise?’ says the lawyer every now and then, +‘it’s like a man havin’ his hair +cut.’ ‘It <i>is</i> wery like a man +havin’ his hair cut,’ says poor Jinkinson, +hidin’ the scissors and lookin’ quite innocent. +By the time the lawyer found it out, he was wery nearly +bald. Jinkinson was kept alive in this vay for a long time, +but at last vun day he has in all the children, vun arter +another, shaves each on ’em wery clean, and gives him vun +kiss on the crown of his head; then he has in the two assistants, +and arter cuttin’ and curlin’ of ’em in the +first style of elegance, says he should like to hear the woice +o’ the greasiest bear, vich rekvest is immedetly complied +with; then he says that he feels wery happy in his mind, and +vishes to be left alone; and then he dies, prevously +cuttin’ his <a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>own hair, and makin’ one flat curl in the wery +middle of his forehead.” <a name="citation18a"></a><a +href="#footnote18a" class="citation">[18a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is a great deal more in the same vein, not unworthy of +the “Pickwick Papers.” We must leave the +curious reader to find it out, however, for himself.</p> +<p>During the progress of this publication, it seems that certain +officious persons, mistaking it for a kind of <i>omnium +gatherum</i>, by “several hands,” tendered +contributions to its pages, and the author was compelled to issue +the following advertisement:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">MASTER HUMPHREY’S +CLOCK.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Dickens</span> begs to inform all +those Ladies and Gentlemen who have tendered him contributions +for this work, and all those who may now or at any future time +have it in contemplation to do so, that he cannot avail himself +of their obliging offers, as it is written solely by himself, and +cannot possibly include any productions from other hands.</p> +<p>This announcement will serve for a final answer to all +correspondents, and will render any private communications +unnecessary.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After “winding up his Clock,” as he termed it, +Dickens resolved to make a tour in the United States. +Before he went away, however, some of the most distinguished +citizens of Edinburgh gave him a farewell banquet. <a +name="citation18b"></a><a href="#footnote18b" +class="citation">[18b]</a> He was then only twenty-nine +years of age, and this was the first great public recognition of +his genius, and the first occasion that was afforded him of +displaying his powers as a public <a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>speaker. Professor Wilson +(Christopher North) presided, and spoke of the young author in +the following terms:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Our friend has dealt with the common +feelings and passions of ordinary men in the common and ordinary +paths of life. He has not sought—at least he has not +yet sought—to deal with those thoughts and passions that +are made conspicuous from afar by the elevated stations of those +who experience them. He has mingled in the common walks of +life; he has made himself familiar with the lower orders of +society. He has not been deterred by the aspect of vice and +wickedness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of good +in things evil, but has endeavoured by the might of genius to +transmute what was base into what is precious as the beaten gold. +. . . But I shall be betrayed, if I go on much +longer,—which it would be improper for me to do—into +something like a critical delineation of the genius of our +illustrious guest. I shall not attempt that; but I cannot +but express in a few ineffectual words, the delight which every +human bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades all his +creations. How kind and good a man he is, I need not say; +nor what strength of genius he has acquired by that profound +sympathy with his fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and +happiness, or overwhelmed with unfortunate circumstances, but who +do not yet sink under their miseries, but trust to their own +strength of endurance, to that principle of truth and honour and +integrity which is no stranger <a name="page20"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 20</span>to the uncultivated bosom, which is +found in the lowest abodes in as great strength as in the halls +of nobles and the palaces of kings.</p> +<p>“Mr. Dickens is also a satirist. He satirises +human life, but he does not satirise it to degrade it. He +does not wish to pull down what is high into the neighbourhood of +what is low. He does not seek to represent all virtue as a +hollow thing, in which no confidence can be placed. He +satirises only the selfish, and the hard-hearted, and the cruel; +he exposes in a hideous light that principle which, when acted +upon, gives a power to men in the lowest grades to carry on a +more terrific tyranny than if placed upon thrones. I shall +not say—for I do not feel—that our distinguished +guest has done full and entire justice to one subject—that +he has entirely succeeded where I have no doubt he would be most +anxious to succeed—in a full and complete delineation of +the female character. But this he has done: he has not +endeavoured to represent women as charming merely by the aid of +accomplishments, however elegant and graceful. He has not +depicted those accomplishments as the essentials of their +character, but has spoken of them rather as always inspired by a +love of domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by +charity, and by hope, which makes them discharge, under the most +difficult circumstances, their duties; and which brings over +their path in this world some glimpses of the light of +heaven. Mr. Dickens may be assured that there is felt for +him all over Scotland a sentiment <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>of kindness, affection, admiration +and love; and I know for certain that the knowledge of these +sentiments must make him happy.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across the Atlantic, in +the “Britannia” steam-packet, Captain Hewett, on the +3rd of January, 1842. At Boston, Hartford, and New York, he +was received with ovations (Washington Irving on one occasion +presiding at a banquet held in his honour), until he was obliged +to decline any further appearance in public. During this +first visit to America, he made three long and eloquent speeches, +which are all given in this volume <i>in extenso</i>. In +each of these he referred in an earnest way to the great question +of International Copyright, urging upon his Transatlantic friends +the necessity of doing right and justice in this matter. He +returned to England in the month of June, and a few weeks +afterwards addressed the following circular letter to all the +principal English authors:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“1, <span +class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, York Gate, +Regent’s Park,<br /> +“7<i>th</i> <i>July</i>, 1842.</p> +<p>“You may perhaps be aware that, during my stay in +America, I lost no opportunity of endeavouring to awaken the +public mind to a sense of the unjust and iniquitous state of the +law in that country, in reference to the wholesale piracy of +British works. Having been successful in making the subject +one of general discussion in the United States, I carried to +Washington, for presentation to Congress by Mr. Clay, a petition +<a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>from the +whole body of American authors, earnestly praying for the +enactment of an International Copyright Law. It was signed +by Mr. Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Cooper, and every man +who has distinguished himself in the literature of America; and +has since been referred to a Select Committee of the House of +Representatives. To counteract any effect which might be +produced by that petition, a meeting was held in +Boston—which, you will remember, is the seat and stronghold +of Learning and Letters in the United States—at which a +memorial against any change in the existing state of things in +this respect was agreed to, with but one dissentient voice. +This document, which, incredible as it may appear to you, was +actually forwarded to Congress and received, deliberately stated +that if English authors were invested with any control over the +re-publication of their own books, it would be no longer possible +for American editors to alter and adapt them (as they do now) to +the American taste! This memorial was, without loss of +time, replied to by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with the natural +indignation of a gentleman, and a man of letters, upon its +extraordinary dishonesty. I am satisfied that this brief +mention of its tone and spirit is sufficient to impress you with +the conviction that it becomes all those who are in any way +connected with the literature of England, to take that high +stand, to which the nature of their pursuits, and the extent of +their sphere of usefulness, justly entitle them, to discourage +the upholders of such doctrines by every means in their power, +and to hold themselves aloof from the remotest participation in a +system, from which the moral sense and honourable feeling of all +just men must instinctively recoil.</p> +<p>“For myself, I have resolved that I will never from this +time enter into any negotiation with any person for the +transmission across the Atlantic of early proofs of anything I +may write, and that I will forego all profit derivable from such +a source. I do not venture to urge this line of proceeding +upon you, but I would beg to suggest, and to lay great stress +upon the necessity <a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>of observing one other course of action, to which I +cannot too emphatically call your attention. The persons +who exert themselves to mislead the American public on this +question, to put down its discussion, and to suppress and distort +the truth in reference to it in every possible way, are (as you +may easily suppose) those who have a strong interest in the +existing system of piracy and plunder: inasmuch as, so long as it +continues, they can gain a very comfortable living out of the +brains of other men, while they would find it very difficult to +earn bread by the exercise of their own. These are the +editors and proprietors of newspapers almost exclusively devoted +to the re-publication of popular English works. They are, +for the most part, men of very low attainments, and of more than +indifferent reputation; and I have frequently seen them, in the +same sheet in which they boast of the rapid sale of many thousand +copies of an English reprint, coarsely and insolently attacking +the author of that very book, and heaping scurrility and slander +upon his head. I would therefore entreat you, in the name +of the honourable pursuit with which you are so intimately +connected, never to hold correspondence with any of these men, +and never to negotiate with them for the sale of early proofs of +any work over which you have control, but to treat on all +occasions with some respectable American publishing house, and +with such an establishment only. Our common interest in +this subject, and my advocacy of it, single-handed, on every +occasion that has presented itself during my absence from Europe, +form my excuse for addressing you.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“I am, &c.,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>By his “American Notes,” and by some of the scenes +in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” Dickens gave for a time great +offence to the Americans, though he only satirised some of their +foibles (with just a spice of piquante exaggeration), as he had +ours at home. Let <a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>the reader hear what two candid +Americans have recently written on this subject:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The ‘American Notes’ are weak, +and unworthy of their author; but the American sketches in +‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ are among the cleverest and +truest things he has ever written. The satire was richly +deserved, well applied, and has done a great deal of good. +To claim that it was mere burlesque and exaggeration, is sheer +nonsense, and it is highly disingenuous to deny the existence of +the absurdities upon which it was founded. Moreover, the +popular implication that there is really nothing now in the +country justly to provoke a smile—to urge with so much +complacency that we have changed all that—argues the +continued existence of not a little of the same thin-skinned +tetchiness, the same inability ‘to see ourselves as others +see us,’ which made us so legitimate a target +before.”</p> +<p>“As for certain American portraits painted in Martin +Chuzzlewit,” says an American lady, <a +name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24" +class="citation">[24]</a> “I should as soon think of +objecting to them as I should think of objecting to any other +discovery in natural history. To deny the existence of +Elijah Pogram, Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Mrs. Hominy, and +Miss Codger, is to deny facts somewhat exaggerated, that are +patent to any keen observer who has ever travelled through the +United States. The character of Elijah Pogram is so well +known as to constantly figure in <a name="page25"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 25</span>the world of illustration; and we can +well afford to laugh at foibles of native growth when Mr. Dickens +devotes the greater part of this same novel to the exposition of +English vice and selfishness.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following letter, referring to Martin Chuzzlewit, which +was then in course of publication, was addressed by Mr. Dickens +to a friend in January, 1844:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“Devonshire +Terrace,<br /> +“<i>January</i> 2<i>d</i>, 1844.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">That</span> is a very horrible case +you tell me of. I would to God I could get at the parental +heart of —, in which event I would so scarify it, that he +should writhe again. But if I were to put such a father as +he into a book, all the fathers going (and especially the bad +ones) would hold up their hands and protest against the unnatural +caricature. I find that a great many people (particularly +those who might have sat for the character) consider even Mr. +Pecksniff a grotesque impossibility, and Mrs. Nickleby herself, +sitting bodily before me in a solid chair, once asked me whether +I really believed there ever was such a woman.</p> +<p>“So — reviewing his own case, would not believe in +Jonas Chuzzlewit. ‘I like Oliver Twist,’ says +—, ‘for I am fond of children. But the book is +unnatural, for who would think of being cruel to poor little +Oliver Twist!’</p> +<p>“Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my mind, and if I +can hit him between the eyes so that he shall stagger more than +you or I have done this Christmas under the combined effects of +punch and turkey, I will.</p> +<p>“Thank you cordially for your note. Excuse this +scrap of paper. I thought it was a whole sheet until I +turned it over.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“My dear Sir,<br /> +“Faithfully yours,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>To a +collection of Sketches and Tales by a Working Man, published in +1844, <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26" +class="citation">[26]</a> Charles Dickens was induced to +contribute a preface, from which we select the following +passages:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I do not recommend it as a book of +surpassing originality or transcendent merit . . . I do not claim +to have discovered, in humble life, an extraordinary and +brilliant genius. I cannot charge mankind in general with +having entered into a conspiracy to neglect the author of this +volume, or to leave him pining in obscurity. I have not the +smallest intention of comparing him with Burns, the exciseman; or +with Bloomfield, the shoemaker; or with Ebenezer Elliott, the +worker in iron; or with James Hogg, the shepherd. I see no +reason to be hot, or bitter, or lowering, or sarcastic, or +indignant, or fierce, or sour, or sharp, in his behalf. I +have nothing to rail at; nothing to exalt; nothing to flourish in +the face of a stony-hearted world; and have but a very short and +simple story to tell.</p> +<p>“John Overs is, as is set forth in the title-page, a +working man. A man who earns his weekly wages (or who did +when he was strong enough) by plying of the hammer, plane, and +chisel. He became known to me nearly six years ago, when he +sent me some songs, appropriate to the different months of the +year, with a letter, stating under what circumstances they had <a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>been +composed, and in what manner he was occupied from morning until +night. I was just then relinquishing the conduct of a +monthly periodical, <a name="citation27"></a><a +href="#footnote27" class="citation">[27]</a> or I would gladly +have published them. As it was, I returned them to him, +with a private expression of the interest I felt in such +productions. They were afterwards accepted, with much +readiness and consideration, by Mr. Tait, of Edinburgh, and were +printed in his Magazine.</p> +<p>“Finding, after some further correspondence with my new +friend, that his authorship had not ceased with his verses, but +that he still occupied his leisure moments in writing, I took +occasion to remonstrate with him seriously against his pursuing +that course. I told him, his persistence in his new calling +made me uneasy; and I advised him to abandon it as strongly as I +could.</p> +<p>“In answer to this dissuasion of mine, he wrote me as +manly and straightforward, but withal, as modest a letter, as +ever I read in my life. He explained to me how limited his +ambition was: soaring no higher than the establishment of his +wife in some light business, and the better education of his +children. He set before me the difference between his +evening and holiday studies, such as they were; and the having no +better resource than an ale-house or a skittle-ground. He +told me how every small addition to his stock of knowledge made +his Sunday walks the pleasanter, <a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>the hedge-flowers sweeter, everything +more full of interest and meaning to him.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>“He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the man who came +into my little study for the first time, half-a-dozen years ago, +after the correspondence I have mentioned. He has been very +ill for a long period; his disease is a severe and wasting +affection of the lungs, which has incapacitated him these many +months for every kind of occupation. ‘If I could only +do a hard day’s work,’ he said to me the other day, +‘how happy I should be.’</p> +<p>“Having these papers by him, amongst others, he +bethought himself that, if he could get a bookseller to purchase +them for publication in a volume, they would enable him to make +some temporary provision for his sick wife, and very young +family. We talked the matter over together, and that it +might be easier of accomplishment I promised him that I would +write an introduction to his book.</p> +<p>“I would to Heaven that I could do him better +service! I would to Heaven it were an introduction to a +long, and vigorous, and useful life! But Hope will not trim +his lamp the less brightly for him and his, because of this +impulse to their struggling fortunes, and trust me, reader, they +deserve her light, and need it sorely.</p> +<p>“He has inscribed this book to one <a +name="citation28"></a><a href="#footnote28" +class="citation">[28]</a> whose skill <a name="page29"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 29</span>will help him, under Providence, in +all that human skill can do. <a name="citation29"></a><a +href="#footnote29" class="citation">[29]</a> To one who +never could have recognised in any potentate on earth a higher +claim to constant kindness and attention than he has recognized +in him. * * * *”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with which during +the last fifteen years the public have become so familiar, was +commenced by Mr. Dickens in December, 1843, with <i>A Christmas +Carol in Prose</i>, illustrated by John Leech. What +Jeffrey, what Sydney Smith, what Jerrold, what Thackeray thought +and wrote about this little story is well known. +“Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens,” +wrote Jeffrey, “and may it always be as full and as light +as it is kind, and a fountain of goodness to all within reach of +its beatings. We are all charmed with your Carol; chiefly, +I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, +and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been +awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the +dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and +little Tiny Tim in life and in death almost as sweet and touching +as Nelly. You may be sure you have done more good, and not +only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive +acts of benevolence by this little publication than can be <a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>traced to all +the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, 1842.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“It is the work,” writes Thackeray, <a +name="citation30"></a><a href="#footnote30" +class="citation">[30]</a> “of the master of all the English +humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place +calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. +Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those half-dozen years, the +store of happy hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and +pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless +laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which he +has taught us to feel! Every month of those years has +brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. His +books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to +wait? Since the days when the <i>Spectator</i> was produced +by a man of kindred mind and temper, what books have appeared +that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as +these?</p> +<p>“Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as +this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man +or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two +people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or +the author, and both said by way of criticism, ‘God bless +him!’ * * * As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in +the book regarding that young gentleman about which a man should +hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than he +would of any other affections of his private heart. There +is not a reader in England <a name="page31"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 31</span>but that little creature will be a +bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of +Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ‘God bless +him!’ What a feeling is this for a writer to be able +to inspire, and what a reward to reap.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>During six years did Mr. Dickens continue to issue at +Christmas these little volumes: “A Christmas Carol” +(December, 1843); “The Chimes” (December, 1844); +“The Cricket on the Hearth” (December, 1845); +“The Battle of Life” (December, 1846); “The +Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain” (December, +1848). <a name="citation31"></a><a href="#footnote31" +class="citation">[31]</a></p> +<p>Christmas stories are now grown so much the fashion that, +whenever the season of holly and mistletoe comes round they greet +us at every turn, forcing themselves upon our notice through +every species of whimsical and enticing embellishment. Why +is it that, amidst such a satiety of novelties we turn again and +again, with an interest as keen as ever, to a perusal of the +pages where little Dot Peerybingle chirps as brightly as the +cricket on her own hearth, where Trotty Veck listens to the +voices of the chimes, striving to comprehend what it is they say +to him, and where old Scrooge’s heart is softened by his +ghostly visitants? It is because Charles Dickens has made +such a study of that human nature we all possess <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>in common +that he is able to strike with a practised hand upon the chords +of our hearts, and draw forth harmony that vibrates from soul to +soul.</p> +<p>It is not, however, our intention here, to follow Mr. Dickens +through the whole of his long and honourable literary career, far +less to undertake the superfluous task of extolling the numerous +and brilliant list of writings that have followed each other in +rapid and welcome succession from his indefatigable pen. +All that remains for us to do now, is to notice briefly two very +grave charges that have been made against the general tendency of +his writings, and to bring forward some evidence in refutation of +them.</p> +<p>These two charges are, 1, a wilful perversion of facts in +describing the political and social condition of our time; 2, an +irreverence for and ridicule of sacred things and persons, which +(say the objectors) infuses a subtle poison through the whole of +his works, and unsettles the belief of the young. We shall +take these charges one at a time.</p> +<p>In some of his later novels, such as “Bleak +House,” and “Little Dorrit,” in which he has +endeavoured to grapple with the great social and political +problems of the age, certain critics have accused him of +exaggeration, and even of a wilful perversion of facts. +Against their opinion we are pleased to be able to set that of so +good an authority as the author of “Modern +Painters:”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The essential value and truth of +Dickens’s writings,” says Mr. Ruskin, “have +been unwisely lost <a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he +presents his truth with some colour of caricature. +Unwisely, because Dickens’s caricature, though often gross, +is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, +the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he +could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works +written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject +of high national importance, such as that which he handled in +‘Hard Times,’ that he would use severer and more +accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, +in several respects the greatest he has written,) is with many +persons seriously diminished, because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic +monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; +and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a +characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not +lose the use of Dickens’s wit and insight because he +chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely +right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; +and all of them, but especially ‘Hard Times,’ should +be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in +social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, +because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the +evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it +will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the +finally right one, grossly and sharply told.” <a +name="citation33"></a><a href="#footnote33" +class="citation">[33]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>Secondly, Mr. Dickens is accused of an irreverence for, +and unseemly ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive +reader of Dickens will have observed that he is not much in the +habit of quoting from, or alluding to the writings of others; but +that when he does quote or allude, it is in the great majority of +cases from or to the Holy Scriptures. <a name="citation34"></a><a +href="#footnote34" class="citation">[34]</a> Occasionally +we come upon a reference to Shakespeare; now and then we meet +with one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but these occur so +seldom, that it may be said, once for all, that the source from +which Mr. Dickens is usually in the habit of making quotations, +is the Bible only. It is very interesting to find that so +many of Mr. Dickens’s characters are represented as being +in the habit either of regularly reading and studying the Bible, +or of having it read to them by some one else.</p> +<p>“I ain’t much of a hand at reading +writing-hand,” said Betty Higden, “though I can read +my Bible and most print.” Little Nell was in the +constant habit of taking the Bible with her to read while in her +quiet and lonely retreat in the old church, after all her long +and weary wanderings were past. In the happy time which +Oliver Twist spent with Mrs. Maylie and Rose, he used to read, in +the evenings, a chapter or two from the Bible, which he had been +studying all the week, and in the performance of which duty he +felt more proud and pleased than if he had been the clergyman <a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>himself. There was Sarah, in the “Sketches +by Boz,” who regularly read the Bible to her old mistress; +and in the touching sketch of “Our Next-door +Neighbour” in the same book, we find the mother of the sick +boy engaged in reading the Bible to him when the visitor called +and interrupted her. This incident reminds us of the poor +Chancery prisoner in the Fleet, who, when on his death-bed calmly +waiting the release which would set him free for ever, had the +Bible read to him by an old man in a cobbler’s apron. +One of David Copperfield’s earliest recollections was of a +certain Sunday evening, when his mother read aloud to him and +Peggotty the story of Our Saviour raising Lazarus from the +dead. So deep an impression did the story make upon the +boy, taken in connexion with all that had been lately told him +about his father’s funeral, that he requested to be carried +up to his bed-room, from the windows of which he could see the +quiet churchyard with the dead all lying in their graves at rest +below the solemn moon. Pip, too, in “Great +Expectations,” was not only in the habit of reading the +Bible to the convict under sentence of death, but of praying with +him as well; and Esther Summerson tells us how she used to come +downstairs every evening at nine o’clock to read the Bible +to her god-mother.</p> +<p>Not a few of the dwellings into which Mr. Dickens conducts us +in the course of some of his best-known stories, have their walls +decorated with prints illustrative of familiar scenes from sacred +history. Thus when Martin <a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>Chuzzlewit went away from +Pecksniff’s, and was ten good miles on his way to London, +he stopped to breakfast in the parlour of a little roadside inn, +on the walls of which were two or three highly-coloured pictures, +representing the Wise Men at the Manger, and the Prodigal Son +returning to his Father. On the walls of Peggotty’s +charming boat-cottage there were prints, showing the Sacrifice of +Isaac, and the Casting of Daniel into the Den of Lions. +When Arthur Clennam came home after his long absence in the East, +he found the Plagues of Egypt still hanging, framed and glazed, +on the same old place in his mother’s parlour. And +who has forgotten the fireplace in old Scrooge’s house, +which “was paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, +designed to illustrate the Scriptures?”</p> +<p>Here are a few comparisons. Mr. Larry, in bestowing a +bachelor’s blessing on Miss Cross, before +“somebody” came to claim her for his own, “held +the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression +on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his +little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, +if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as +Adam.” As old as Adam here means so long ago as +Adam’s time; while Methuselah suggests great age. +Thus Miss Jellyby relieved her mind to Miss Summerson on the +subject of Mr. Quale, in the following energetic +language:—“If he were to come with his great shining, +lumpy forehead, night after night, till he was as old as <a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>Methuselah, I +wouldn’t have anything to say to him.” And Mr. +Filer, in his eminently practical remarks on the lamentable +ignorance of political economy on the part of working people in +connexion with marriage, observed to Alderman Cute that a man may +live to be as old as Methuselah, and may labour all his life for +the benefit of such people; but there could be no more hope of +persuading them that they had no right or business to be married, +than he could hope to persuade them that they had no earthly +right or business to be born. Miss Betsy Trotwood declared +to Mr. Dick that the natural consequence of David +Copperfield’s mother having married a murderer—or a +man with a name very like it—was to set the boy a-prowling +and wandering about the country, “like Cain before he was +grown up.” Joe Gargery’s journeyman, on going +away from his work at night, used to slouch out of the shop like +Cain, or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was +going, and had no intention of ever coming back. Describing +the state of “the thriving City of Eden,” when Martin +and Mark arrived there, the author of “Martin +Chuzzlewit” says—“The waters of the Deluge +might have left it but a week before, so choked with slime and +matted growth was the hideous swamp which bore that +name.” The Deluge suggests Noah’s ark. +The following reference to it is from “Little +Dorrit,” descriptive of the gradual approach of darkness up +among the highest ridges of the Alps:—“The ascending +night came up the mountains like a rising <a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>water. +When at last it rose to the walls of the convent of the great St. +Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were another +ark, and floated on the shadowy waves.” Here is +something from the Tower of Babel:—“Looming heavy in +the black wet night, the tall chimneys of the Coketown factories +rose high into the air, and looked as if they were so many +competing towers of Babel.” When Mortimer Lightwood +inquired of Charley Hexam, with reference to the body of the man +found in the river, whether or not any means had been employed to +restore life, he received this reply:—“You +wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew his state. +Pharoah’s multitude that were drowned in the Red Sea +ain’t more beyond restoring to life.” The boy +added, further, “that if Lazarus were only half as far +gone, that was the greatest of all the miracles.” +When the Scotch surgeon was called in professionally to see Mr. +Krook’s unfortunate lodger, the Scotch tongue pronounced +him to be “just as dead as Chairy.” Job’s +poverty is not likely to be forgotten among the +comparisons. No, Mr. Mell’s mother was as poor as +Job. Nor Samson’s strength: Dot’s mother had so +many infallible recipes for the preservation of the baby’s +health, that had they all been administered, the said baby must +have been done for, though strong as an infant Samson. Nor +Goliath’s importance: John Chivery’s chivalrous +feeling towards all that belonged to Little Dorrit, made him so +very respectable, in spite of his small stature, his weak legs, +and his <a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>genuine poetic temperament, that a Goliath might have +sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur +Clennam’s hands. Nor Solomon’s wisdom: Trotty +Veck was so delighted when the child kissed him that he +couldn’t help saying, “She’s as sensible as +Solomon.” Miss Wade having said farewell to her +fellow-travellers in the public room of the hotel at Marseilles, +sought her own apartment. As she passed along the gallery, +she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door +stood open, and, looking into the room, she saw therein +Pet’s attendant, the maid with the curious name of +Tattycoram. Miss Wade asked what was the matter, and +received in reply a few short and angry words in a +deeply-injured, ill-used tone. Then again commenced the +sobs and tears and pinching, tearing fingers, making altogether +such a scene as if she were being “rent by the demons of +old.” Let us close these comparisons by quoting +another from the same book, “Little Dorrit,” +descriptive of the evening stillness after a day of terrific +glare and heat at Marseilles:—“The sun went down in a +red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and +the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly +imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long, dusty +roads and the interminable plains were in repose, and <i>so deep +a hush was on the sea</i>, <i>that it scarcely whispered of the +time when it shall give up its dead</i>.”</p> +<p>Looking over the familiar pages of “Nicholas +Nickleby,” our eye lights upon a passage, almost at <a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>opening, +which refers to God’s goodness and mercy. As +Nickleby’s father lay on his death-bed, he embraced his +wife and children, and then “solemnly commended them to One +who never deserted the widow or her fatherless +children.” Towards the close of Esther +Summerson’s narrative in “Bleak House” we read +these touching, tender words regarding Ada’s +baby:—“The little child who was to have done so much +was born before the turf was planted on its father’s +grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian +gave him his father’s name. The help that my dear +counted on did come to her; though it came in the Eternal Wisdom +for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his +mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power +was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak +little hand, and how its touch could heal my darling’s +heart and raise up hopes within her, I felt a new sense of the +goodness and tenderness of God.” After these +illustrations of the great lessons of the goodness of God, and +that there is mercy in even our hardest trials, we come next upon +one which teaches the duty of patience and resignation to +God’s will. Mrs. Maylie observed to Oliver Twist, +with reference to the dangerous illness of Rose, that she had +seen and experienced enough to “know that it is not always +the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but +this should give us comfort in our sorrow, for Heaven is just, +and such things teach us impressively that there is a brighter +world than this, <a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>and that the passage to it is speedy. God’s +will be done!”</p> +<p>Our Saviour’s life and teaching afford so many +interesting illustrations to Charles Dickens that our great +difficulty, in the limited space to which we are now confined, is +to make a good selection. Here is a sketch entitled +“A Christmas Tree,” from one of his reprinted pieces, +which contains this simple and beautiful summary of our +Lord’s life on earth:—“The waits are playing, +and they break my childish sleep! What images do I +associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the +Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far +apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. +An angel speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some +travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a Baby in a +manger; a Child in a spacious temple talking with grave men; a +solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead +girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son +of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking +through the opened roof of a chamber where He sits, and letting +down a sick person on a bed with ropes; the same, in a tempest, +walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a +great multitude; again, with a child upon His knee, and other +children round; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to +the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to +the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, +watched by armed soldiers, <a name="page42"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 42</span>a thick darkness coming on, the earth +beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, ‘Forgive +them, for they know not what they do.’”</p> +<p>These passages, which are only a few out of a very much longer +list that might be made, will be sufficient, we trust, to show +how much our greatest living novelist is in the habit of going to +the sacred narrative for illustrations to many of his most +touching incidents, and how reverent and respectful always is the +spirit in which every such illustration is employed. To +think of Charles Dickens’s writings as containing no +religious teaching, is to do them a great injustice.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The first of Mr. Dickens’s famous public Readings was +given at Birmingham, during the Christmas week of 1853. At +a meeting held on Monday, January 10, 1853, in the theatre of the +Philosophical Institution, “for the purpose of considering +the desirableness of establishing in Birmingham a Scientific and +Literary Society upon a comprehensive plan, having for its object +the diffusion,” &c., Mr. Arthur Ryland read a letter +from Mr. Charles Dickens, received by him the day after the +Literary and Artistic Banquet, containing an offer to visit +Birmingham next Christmas, and read his Christmas Carol, in the +Town Hall, for the benefit of the proposed Institution, with the +proviso, however, that as many as possible of the working class +should be admitted free. “It would,” said Mr. +Dickens, “take about two hours, with a pause of ten minutes +half-way through. There would be some <a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>novelty in +the thing, as I have never done it in public, though I have in +private, and (if I may say so) with a great effect on the +hearers. I was so inexpressibly gratified last night by the +warmth and enthusiasm of my Birmingham friends, that I feel half +ashamed this morning of so poor an offer. But as I had +decided on making it to you before I came down yesterday, I +propose it nevertheless.”</p> +<p>The readings—three in number—came off with great +<i>éclat</i> during the last week of the year, and brought +in a net sum of £400 to the Institute. Mr. Dickens +continued from this time to give similar readings, for charitable +purposes, both in the provinces and in London; but it was not +till five years later (1858) that he began to read on his own +account.</p> +<p>As we are writing, that long series of +readings—continued through sixteen years, in both +hemispheres—is drawing to a close, and the voice and figure +of Charles Dickens, that have grown so familiar to us all, will +dwell henceforth in the memory alone, but in one of its most +honoured niches.</p> +<p>We ought not to omit to mention what any reader may well +surmise, that Charles Dickens is inimitable in enlivening +correspondence or table-talk with humorous anecdote, appropriate +to the occasion. We subjoin a few specimens. The +first is from one of his letters to Douglas Jerrold, and is dated +Paris, 14th February, 1847:—“I am somehow reminded of +a good story I heard the other night from a man who was a witness +of it, and an actor in it. At a certain <a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>German town +last autumn there was a tremendous <i>furore</i> about Jenny +Lind, who, after driving the whole place mad, left it, on her +travels, early one morning. The moment her carriage was +outside the gates, a party of rampant students, who had escorted +it, rushed back to the inn, demanded to be shown to her bedroom, +swept like a whirlwind upstairs into the room indicated to them, +tore up the sheets, and wore them in strips as decorations. +An hour or two afterwards a bald old gentleman, of amiable +appearance, an Englishman, who was staying in the hotel, came to +breakfast at the <i>table d’hôte</i>, and was +observed to be much disturbed in his mind, and to show great +terror whenever a student came near him. At last he said, +in a low voice, to some people who were near him at the table, +‘You are English gentlemen, I observe. Most +extraordinary people, these Germans! Students, as a body, +raving mad, gentlemen!’ ‘Oh, no!’ said +somebody else; ‘excitable, but very good fellows, and very +sensible.’ ‘By God, sir!’ returned the +old gentleman, still more disturbed, ‘then there’s +something political in it, and I am a marked man. I went +out for a little walk this morning after shaving, and while I was +gone’—he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told +it—‘they burst into my bedroom, tore up my sheets, +and are now patrolling the town in all directions with bits of +’em in their button-holes!’ I needn’t +wind up by adding that they had gone to the wrong +chamber.”</p> +<p>Dickens now and then administers a little gentle <a +name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>rebuke to +affectation, in a pleasant but unmistakable manner. Here is +an instance of how he silenced a bilious young writer, who was +inveighing against the world in a very “forcible feeble +manner.” During a pause in this philippic against the +human race, Dickens said across the table, in the most +self-congratulatory of tones:—“I say—what a +lucky thing it is you and I don’t belong to it? It +reminds me,” continued the author of Pickwick, “of +the two men, who on a <i>raised</i> scaffold were awaiting the +final delicate attention of the hangman; the notice of one was +aroused by observing that a bull had got into the crowd of +spectators, and was busily employed in tossing one here, and +another there; whereupon one of the criminals said to the +other—‘I say, Bill, how <i>lucky it is</i> for us +that we <i>are up here</i>.’”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Here is a humorous and graphic account which he sent to the +leading newspaper of his sensations during the shock of +earthquake that was felt all over England in October, 1863. +It is doubly interesting, as giving a description of his +country-house at Gad’s-hill, near Rochester:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I was awakened by a violent swaying of my +bedstead from side to side, accompanied by a singular heaving +motion. It was exactly as if some great beast had been +crouching asleep under the bedstead, and were now shaking itself +and trying to rise. The time by my watch was twenty minutes +past three, <a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>and I suppose the shock to have lasted nearly a +minute. The bedstead, a large iron one, standing nearly +north and south, appeared to me to be the only piece of furniture +in the room that was heavily shaken. Neither the doors nor +the windows rattled, though they rattle enough in windy weather, +this house standing alone, on high ground, in the neighbourhood +of two great rivers. There was no noise. The air was +very still, and much warmer than it had been in the earlier part +of the night. Although the previous afternoon had been wet, +the glass had not fallen. I had mentioned my surprise at +its standing near the letter ‘i’ in +‘Fair,’ and having a tendency to rise.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>But the thing which, above all others, has characterised +Dickens throughout his career, that has made his world-wide fame, +and rendered his name a household word, is his broad, genial +sympathy with life in all its phases, and with those most who are +manfully toiling towards a better day. To this +“enthusiasm of humanity” John Forster has alluded in +the Dedicatory Sonnet to Charles Dickens, prefixed to his +“Life of Goldsmith,” (March, 1848), when he +says:—</p> +<blockquote><p> “Come +with me and behold,<br /> +O friend with heart as gentle for distress,<br /> +As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind<br /> +The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind,<br /> +<a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>That there +is fiercer crowded misery<br /> +In garret-toil and London loneliness<br /> +Than in cruel islands ’mid the far-off sea.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The great heart of Dickens has beat in unison with his age and +with the people, and his name will be dear to all +English-speaking races long after this little island of ours, the +old home, shall have become a summer resort—a curiosity to +visit—for the children of the great Anglo-Saxon Republics +that are now growing up in the New and the Southern Worlds.</p> +<p><i>December</i>, 1869.</p> +<h2>I.<br /> +EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. +Dickens, and presided over by the late Professor Wilson, the +Chairman having proposed his health in a long and eloquent +speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as follows:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> I felt your warm and generous +welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I +could have listened as you have listened to the glowing language +of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could have heard as you +heard the “thoughts that breathe and words that +burn,” which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I +should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at +his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and +every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you +received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond +to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, +yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial +greeting—possessing, heaven knows, the will, and desiring +only to find the way.</p> +<p>The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to +me very pleasing—a path strewn with flowers and cheered +with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, +whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if +the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been +kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other +as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as +if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued +together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known +them apart from you.</p> +<p>It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of +his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without +impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine +were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and +shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless +cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be +despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. +I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in +evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in +them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the +bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty +and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, +expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The rank is but the guinea stamp,<br /> +The man’s the gowd for a’ that.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And in following this track, where could I have better +assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger +assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this to me +memorable night?</p> +<p>I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word +in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were +interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound +paradoxical, that you were disappointed—I mean the death of +the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of +conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined +rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in +view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death +of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in +my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland +of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the +tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill +the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief +of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford +pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall +consider it as something achieved—something which I shall +be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept +to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the +story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from +the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! +The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached +to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I +must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the +ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined +with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not +altogether free from personal invective. But, +notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know +that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in +their approbation.</p> +<p>If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little +incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has +given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and +not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a +difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon +me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to +dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that +while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well +know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital +of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I +shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her +houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if in +the future works which may lie before me you should +discern—God grant you may!—a brighter spirit and a +clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point +to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you +again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each +one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far +easier emptied, I do assure you.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor +Wilson, Mr. Dickens said:—</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> the honour to be entrusted +with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to +you, I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your +sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as +congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to +yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with +his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland—a +literature which he has done much to render famous through the +world, and of which he has been for many years—as I hope +and believe he will be for many more—a most brilliant and +distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of +the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his +mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the +picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred +crutch—Christopher North. I am glad to remember the +time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old +gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High +Street with the most brilliant eye—but that is no +fiction—and the greyest hair in all the world—who +wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the +wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he +could not help it, because there was always springing up in his +mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, +and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you +might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a +single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and +when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the +Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal +offence—I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I +drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think +that Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to +doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, +always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. +Dickens said:—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Less</span> fortunate than the two +gentlemen who have preceded me, it is confided to me to mention a +name which cannot be pronounced without sorrow, a name in which +Scotland had a great triumph, and which England delighted to +honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as +it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art +was nature—I mean David Wilkie. <a name="citation53"></a><a +href="#footnote53" class="citation">[53]</a> He was one who +made the cottage hearth a graceful thing—of whom it might +truly be said that he found “books in the running +brooks,” and who has left in all he did some breathing of +the air which stirs the heather. But however desirous to +enlarge on his genius as an artist, I would rather speak of him +now as a friend who has gone from amongst us. There is his +deserted studio—the empty easel lying idly by—the +unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is +that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which death +cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the +bright sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure as the +blue waves which roll over him. Let us hope that she who +more than all others mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that +he died in the fulness of his time, before age or sickness had +dimmed his powers—and that she may yet associate with +feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory of +Wilkie.</p> +<h2><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>II.<br +/> +JANUARY, 1842.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the +<i>Britannia</i>, <a name="citation55"></a><a href="#footnote55" +class="citation">[55]</a> with a service of plate on behalf of +the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as follows:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Captain Hewett</span>,—I am very +proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of +conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengers on +board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your +acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists +who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises, +even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two goblets, +which there should be here, there is, at present, only one. +The deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and, when it is, +our little testimonial will be, so far, complete.</p> +<p>You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the +word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, +is a sailor’s first boast. I need not enlarge upon +the honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presence +here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the +recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely +vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come.</p> +<p>In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I +hope you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your +memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often +connect you with the pleasure of those homes and fire sides from +which they once wandered, and which, but for you, they might +never have regained, so they trust that you will sometimes +associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, +when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is +commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have; and +who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and +prosperity, in all the undertakings of your life.</p> +<h2><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>III.<br /> +FEBRUARY 1842.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young +men of Boston. The company consisted of about two hundred, +among whom were George Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver +Wendell Holmes. The toast of “Health, happiness, and +a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens,” having been proposed +by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with great applause, +Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—If you had given +this splendid entertainment to anyone else in the whole wide +world—if I were to-night to exult in the triumph of my +dearest friend—if I stood here upon my defence, to repel +any unjust attack—to appeal as a stranger to your +generosity and kindness as the freest people on the earth—I +could, putting some restraint upon myself, stand among you as +self-possessed and unmoved as I should be alone in my own room in +England. But when I have the echoes of your cordial +greeting ringing in my ears; when I see your kind faces beaming a +welcome so warm and earnest as never man had—I feel, it is +my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I have hardly +fortitude enough to thank you. If your President, instead +of pouring forth that delightful mixture of humour and pathos +which you have just heard, had been but a caustic, ill-natured +man—if he had only been a dull one—if I could only +have doubted or distrusted him or you, I should have had my wits +at my fingers’ ends, and, using them, could have held you +at arm’s-length. But you have given me no such +opportunity; you take advantage of me in the tenderest point; you +give me no chance of playing at company, or holding you at a +distance, but flock about me like a host of brothers, and make +this place like home. Indeed, gentlemen, indeed, if it be +natural and allowable for each of us, on his own hearth, to +express his thoughts in the most homely fashion, and to appear in +his plainest garb, I have a fair claim upon you to let me do so +to-night, for you have made my home an Aladdin’s +Palace. You fold so tenderly within your breasts that +common household lamp in which my feeble fire is all enshrined, +and at which my flickering torch is lighted up, that straight my +household gods take wing, and are transported there. And +whereas it is written of that fairy structure that it never moved +without two shocks—one when it rose, and one when it +settled down—I can say of mine that, however sharp a tug it +took to pluck it from its native ground, it struck at once an +easy, and a deep and lasting root into this soil; and loved it as +its own. I can say more of it, and say with truth, that +long before it moved, or had a chance of moving, its +master—perhaps from some secret sympathy between its +timbers, and a certain stately tree that has its being hereabout, +and spreads its broad branches far and wide—dreamed by day +and night, for years, of setting foot upon this shore, and +breathing this pure air. And, trust me, gentlemen, that, if +I had wandered here, unknowing and unknown, I would—if I +know my own heart—have come with all my sympathies +clustering as richly about this land and people—with all my +sense of justice as keenly alive to their high claims on every +man who loves God’s image—with all my energies as +fully bent on judging for myself, and speaking out, and telling +in my sphere the truth, as I do now, when you rain down your +welcomes on my head.</p> +<p>Our President has alluded to those writings which have been my +occupation for some years past; and you have received his +allusions in a manner which assures me—if I needed any such +assurance—that we are old friends in the spirit, and have +been in close communion for a long time.</p> +<p>It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I +daresay that few persons have been more interested in mine than +I, and if it be a general principle in nature that a +lover’s love is blind, and that a mother’s love is +blind, I believe it may be said of an author’s attachment +to the creatures of his own imagination, that it is a perfect +model of constancy and devotion, and is the blindest of +all. But the objects and purposes I have had in view are +very plain and simple, and may be easily told. I have +always had, and always shall have, an earnest and true desire to +contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of +healthful cheerfulness and enjoyment. I have always had, +and always shall have, an invincible repugnance to that mole-eyed +philosophy which loves the darkness, and winks and scowls in the +light. I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags +and patches, as she does in purple and fine linen. I +believe that she and every beautiful object in external nature, +claims some sympathy in the breast of the poorest man who breaks +his scanty loaf of daily bread. I believe that she goes +barefoot as well as shod. I believe that she dwells rather +oftener in alleys and by-ways than she does in courts and +palaces, and that it is good, and pleasant, and profitable to +track her out, and follow her. I believe that to lay +one’s hand upon some of those rejected ones whom the world +has too long forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the +proudest and most thoughtless—“These creatures have +the same elements and capacities of goodness as yourselves, they +are moulded in the same form, and made of the same clay; and +though ten times worse than you, may, in having retained anything +of their original nature amidst the trials and distresses of +their condition, be really ten times better;” I believe +that to do this is to pursue a worthy and not useless +vocation. Gentlemen, that you think so too, your fervent +greeting sufficiently assures me. That this feeling is +alive in the Old World as well as in the New, no man should know +better than I—I, who have found such wide and ready +sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing it, we are +but treading in the steps of those great master-spirits who have +gone before, we know by reference to all the bright examples in +our literature, from Shakespeare downward.</p> +<p>There is one other point connected with the labours (if I may +call them so) that you hold in such generous esteem, to which I +cannot help adverting. I cannot help expressing the +delight, the more than happiness it was to me to find so strong +an interest awakened on this side of the water, in favour of that +little heroine of mine, to whom your president has made allusion, +who died in her youth. I had letters about that child, in +England, from the dwellers in log-houses among the morasses, and +swamps, and densest forests, and deep solitudes of the far +west. Many a sturdy hand, hard with the axe and spade, and +browned by the summer’s sun, has taken up the pen, and +written to me a little history of domestic joy or sorrow, always +coupled, I am proud to say, with something of interest in that +little tale, or some comfort or happiness derived from it, and my +correspondent has always addressed me, not as a writer of books +for sale, resident some four or five thousand miles away, but as +a friend to whom he might freely impart the joys and sorrows of +his own fireside. Many a mother—I could reckon them +now by dozens, not by units—has done the like, and has told +me how she lost such a child at such a time, and where she lay +buried, and how good she was, and how, in this or that respect, +she resembles Nell. I do assure you that no circumstance of +my life has given me one hundredth part of the gratification I +have derived from this source. I was wavering at the time +whether or not to wind up my Clock, <a name="citation61"></a><a +href="#footnote61" class="citation">[61]</a> and come and see +this country, and this decided me. I felt as if it were a +positive duty, as if I were bound to pack up my clothes, and come +and see my friends; and even now I have such an odd sensation in +connexion with these things, that you have no chance of spoiling +me. I feel as though we were agreeing—as indeed we +are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the classes from +which they are drawn—about third parties, in whom we had a +common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, +I say to myself “That’s for Oliver; I should not +wonder if that was meant for Smike; I have no doubt that is +intended for Nell;” and so I become a much happier, +certainly, but a more sober and retiring man than ever I was +before.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings me back, +naturally and of course, to you. Coming back to you, and +being thereby reminded of the pleasure we have in store in +hearing the gentlemen who sit about me, I arrive by the easiest, +though not by the shortest course in the world, at the end of +what I have to say. But before I sit down, there is one +topic on which I am desirous to lay particular stress. It +has, or should have, a strong interest for us all, since to its +literature every country must look for one great means of +refining and improving its people, and one great source of +national pride and honour. You have in America great +writers—great writers—who will live in all time, and +are as familiar to our lips as household words. Deriving +(as they all do in a greater or less degree, in their several +walks) their inspiration from the stupendous country that gave +them birth, they diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higher +love for it, all over the civilized world. I take leave to +say, in the presence of some of those gentleman, that I hope the +time is not far distant when they, in America, will receive of +right some substantial profit and return in England from their +labours; and when we, in England, shall receive some substantial +profit and return in America for ours. Pray do not +misunderstand me. Securing to myself from day to day the +means of an honourable subsistence, I would rather have the +affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I would have heaps and +mines of gold. But the two things do not seem to me +incompatible. They cannot be, for nothing good is +incompatible with justice; there must be an international +arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, and I am +confident that the time is not far distant when America will do +hers. It becomes the character of a great country; +<i>firstly</i>, because it is justice; <i>secondly</i>, because +without it you never can have, and keep, a literature of your +own.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such as are +not often awakened, and can never be expressed. As I +understand it to be the pleasant custom here to finish with a +toast, I would beg to give you: <span class="smcap">America And +England</span>, and may they never have any division but the +Atlantic between them.</p> +<h2><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>IV.<br +/> +FEBRUARY 7, 1842.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—To say that I +thank you for the earnest manner in which you have drunk the +toast just now so eloquently proposed to you—to say that I +give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more than +compound interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless the +best acknowledgments would be beside such genial hospitality as +yours, is nothing. To say that in this winter season, +flowers have sprung up in every footstep’s length of the +path which has brought me here; that no country ever smiled more +pleasantly than yours has smiled on me, and that I have rarely +looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which lies +before me now, <a name="citation63"></a><a href="#footnote63" +class="citation">[63]</a> is nothing.</p> +<p>But it is something to be no stranger in a strange +place—to feel, sitting at a board for the first time, the +ease and affection of an old guest, and to be at once on such +intimate terms with the family as to have a homely, genuine +interest in its every member—it is, I say, something to be +in this novel and happy frame of mind. And, as it is of +your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance in +urging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I should not so +much consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I should +employ that universal language of the heart, which you, and such +as you, best teach, and best can understand. Gentlemen, in +that universal language—common to you in America, and to us +in England, as that younger mother-tongue, which, by the means +of, and through the happy union of our two great countries, shall +be spoken ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of +the globe—I thank you.</p> +<p>I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have +more than once had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy +for an author to speak of his own books. If the task be a +difficult one at any time, its difficulty, certainly, is not +diminished when a frequent recurrence to the same theme has left +one nothing new to say. Still, I feel that, in a company +like this, and especially after what has been said by the +President, that I ought not to pass lightly over those labours of +love, which, if they had no other merit, have been the happy +means of bringing us together.</p> +<p>It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an +author’s personal character from his writings. It may +be that you cannot. I think it very likely, for many +reasons, that you cannot. But, at least, a reader will rise +from the perusal of a book with some defined and tangible idea of +the writer’s moral creed and broad purposes, if he has any +at all; and it is probable enough that he may like to have this +idea confirmed from the author’s lips, or dissipated by his +explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed—which is a +very wide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects and +parties—is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I +wish to diffuse faith in the existence—yes, of beautiful +things, even in those conditions of society, which are so +degenerate, degraded, and forlorn, that, at first sight, it would +seem as though they could not be described but by a strange and +terrible reversal of the words of Scripture, “God said, Let +there be light, and there was none.” I take it that +we are born, and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and +energies, in trust for the many, and not for the few. That +we cannot hold in too strong a light of disgust and contempt, +before the view of others, all meanness, falsehood, cruelty, and +oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, that +nothing is high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing +is low, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson +taught us in the great book of nature. This is the lesson +which may be read, alike in the bright track of the stars, and in +the dusty course of the poorest thing that drags its tiny length +upon the ground. This is the lesson ever uppermost in the +thoughts of that inspired man, who tells us that there are</p> +<blockquote><p>“Tongues in the trees, books in the running +brooks,<br /> +Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at +no loss to refer your favour and your generous hospitality back +to the right source. While I know, on the one hand, that +if, instead of being what it is, this were a land of tyranny and +wrong, I should care very little for your smiles or frowns, so I +am sure upon the other, that if, instead of being what I am, I +were the greatest genius that ever trod the earth, and had +diverted myself for the oppression and degradation of mankind, +you would despise and reject me. I hope you will, whenever, +through such means, I give you the opportunity. Trust me, +that, whenever you give me the like occasion, I will return the +compliment with interest.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of +confidence you have engendered between us, and as I have made a +kind of compact with myself that I never will, while I remain in +America, omit an opportunity of referring to a topic in which I +and all others of my class on both sides of the water are equally +interested—equally interested, there is no difference +between us, I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words: +<i>International Copyright</i>. I use them in no sordid +sense, believe me, and those who know me best, best know +that. For myself, I would rather that my children, coming +after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by the general feeling of +society that their father was beloved, and had been of some use, +than I would have them ride in their carriages, and know by their +banker’s books that he was rich. But I do not see, I +confess, why one should be obliged to make the choice, or why +fame, besides playing that delightful <i>reveil</i> for which she +is so justly celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet a few +notes of a different kind from those with which she has hitherto +contented herself.</p> +<p>It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, +whose words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, +if there had existed any law in this respect, Scott might not +have sunk beneath the mighty pressure on his brain, but might +have lived to add new creatures of his fancy to the crowd which +swarm about you in your summer walks, and gather round your +winter evening hearths.</p> +<p>As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, +that touching scene in the great man’s life, when he lay +upon his couch, surrounded by his family, and listened, for the +last time, to the rippling of the river he had so well loved, +over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, faint, wan, +dying, crushed both in mind and body by his honourable struggle, +and hovering round him the phantoms of his own +imagination—Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, +Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson—all the familiar +throng—with cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highland chiefs +innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading away in the dim +distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing the +world, and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow, that, +from all those lands into which they had carried gladness, +instruction, and delight for millions, they brought him not one +friendly hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. +No, nor brought him from that land in which his own language was +spoken, and in every house and hut of which his own books were +read in his own tongue, one grateful dollar-piece to buy a +garland for his grave. Oh! if every man who goes from here, +as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would but +remember this, and bring the recollection home!</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times +to that. You have given me a new reason for remembering +this day, which is already one of mark in my calendar, it being +my birthday; and you have given those who are nearest and dearest +to me a new reason for recollecting it with pride and +interest. Heaven knows that, although I should grow ever so +gray, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in my +life. But I am glad to think that from this time you are +inseparably connected with every recurrence of this day; and, +that on its periodical return, I shall always, in imagination, +have the unfading pleasure of entertaining you as my guests, in +return for the gratification you have afforded me to-night.</p> +<h2><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>V.<br +/> +NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At a dinner presided over by Washington +Irving, when nearly eight hundred of the most distinguished +citizens of New York were present, “Charles Dickens, the +Literary Guest of the Nation,” having been “proferred +as a sentiment” by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens rose, and +spoke as follows:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—I don’t know +how to thank you—I really don’t know how. You +would naturally suppose that my former experience would have +given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way would +have been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the +reverse, and I have completely baulked the ancient proverb that +“a rolling stone gathers no moss;” and in my progress +to this city I have collected such a weight of obligations and +acknowledgment—I have picked up such an enormous mass of +fresh moss at every point, and was so struck by the brilliant +scenes of Monday night, that I thought I could never by any +possibility grow any bigger. I have made, continually, new +accumulations to such an extent that I am compelled to stand +still, and can roll no more!</p> +<p>Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy +stories, or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their own +accord—as I do not—it presaged some great catastrophe +near at hand. The precedent holds good in this case. When I +have remembered the short time I have before me to spend in this +land of mighty interests, and the poor opportunity I can at best +have of acquiring a knowledge of, and forming an acquaintance +with it, I have felt it almost a duty to decline the honours you +so generously heap upon me, and pass more quietly among +you. For Argus himself, though he had but one mouth for his +hundred eyes, would have found the reception of a public +entertainment once a-week too much for his greatest activity; +and, as I would lose no scrap of the rich instruction and the +delightful knowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already I +have gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and common +jails),—I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my way +rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with America, not at +parties but at home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I say to-night, +with a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, +that I bear, and shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your +affectionate and your noble greeting, which it is utterly +impossible to convey in words. No European sky without, and +no cheerful home or well-warmed room within shall ever shut out +this land from my vision. I shall often hear your words of +welcome in my quiet room, and oftenest when most quiet; and shall +see your faces in the blazing fire. If I should live to +grow old, the scenes of this and other evenings will shine as +brightly to my dull eyes fifty years hence as now; and the +honours you bestow upon me shall be well remembered and paid back +in my undying love, and honest endeavours for the good of my +race.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this first person +singular, and then I shall close. I came here in an open, +honest, and confiding spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt +a deep sympathy in your land; had I felt otherwise, I should have +kept away. As I came here, and am here, without the least +admixture of one-hundredth part of one grain of base alloy, +without one feeling of unworthy reference to self in any respect, +I claim, in regard to the past, for the last time, my right in +reason, in truth, and in justice, to approach, as I have done on +two former occasions, a question of literary interest. I +claim that justice be done; and I prefer this claim as one who +has a right to speak and be heard. I have only to add that +I shall be as true to you as you have been to me. I +recognize in your enthusiastic approval of the creatures of my +fancy, your enlightened care for the happiness of the many, your +tender regard for the afflicted, your sympathy for the downcast, +your plans for correcting and improving the bad, and for +encouraging the good; and to advance these great objects shall +be, to the end of my life, my earnest endeavour, to the extent of +my humble ability. Having said thus much with reference to +myself, I shall have the pleasure of saying a few words with +reference to somebody else.</p> +<p>There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one +of my books—I well remember it was the Old Curiosity +Shop—wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so +affectionate, and so manly, that if I had written the book under +every circumstance of disappointment, of discouragement, and +difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should have found in the +receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. I +answered him, <a name="citation70"></a><a href="#footnote70" +class="citation">[70]</a> and he answered me, and so we kept +shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled between +us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and +[<i>laying his hand it upon Irving’s shoulder</i>] here he +sits! I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to +see him here to-night in this capacity.</p> +<p>Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don’t go +upstairs to bed two nights out of the seven—as a very +creditable witness near at hand can testify—I say I do not +go to bed two nights out of the seven without taking Washington +Irving under my arm; and, when I don’t take him, I take his +own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington Irving! +Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day when I came up +by the Hog’s Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate, and all these +places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited +Shakespeare’s birthplace, and went beneath the roof where +he first saw light, whose name but <i>his</i> was pointed out to +me upon the wall? Washington Irving—Diedrich +Knickerbocker—Geoffrey Crayon—why, where can you go +that they have not been there before? Is there an English +farm—is there an English stream, an English city, or an +English country-seat, where they have not been? Is there no +Bracebridge Hall in existence? Has it no ancient shades or +quiet streets?</p> +<p>In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting +in an old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar’s Head, +a little man with a red nose, and an oilskin hat. When I +came away he was sitting there still!—not a man <i>like</i> +him, but the same man—with the nose of immortal redness and +the hat of an undying glaze! Crayon, while there, was on +terms of intimacy with a certain radical fellow, who used to go +about, with a hatful of newspapers, wofully out at elbows, and +with a coat of great antiquity. Why, gentlemen, I know that +man—Tibbles the elder, and he has not changed a hair; and, +when I came away, he charged me to give his best respects to +Washington Irving!</p> +<p>Leaving the town and the rustic life of +England—forgetting this man, if we can—putting out of +mind the country church-yard and the broken heart—let us +cross the water again, and ask who has associated himself most +closely with the Italian peasantry and the bandits of the +Pyrenees? When the traveller enters his little chamber +beyond the Alps—listening to the dim echoes of the long +passages and spacious corridors—damp, and gloomy, and +cold—as he hears the tempest beating with fury against his +window, and gazes at the curtains, dark, and heavy, and covered +with mould—and when all the ghost-stories that ever were +told come up before him—amid all his thick-coming fancies, +whom does he think of? Washington Irving.</p> +<p>Go farther still: go to the Moorish Mountains, sparkling full +in the moonlight—go among the water-carriers and the +village gossips, living still as in days of old—and who has +travelled among them before you, and peopled the Alhambra and +made eloquent its shadows? Who awakes there a voice from +every hill and in every cavern, and bids legends, which for +centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or watched unwinkingly, +start up and pass before you in all their life and glory?</p> +<p>But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbus upon his +gallant ship, traversed with him the dark and mighty ocean, +leaped upon the land and planted there the flag of Spain, but +this same man, now sitting by my side? And being here at +home again, who is a more fit companion for money-diggers? and +what pen but his has made Rip Van Winkle, playing at nine-pins on +that thundering afternoon, as much part and parcel of the +Catskill Mountains as any tree or crag that they can boast?</p> +<p>But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and which I am +apt to pursue; and lest I should be tempted now to talk too long +about them, I will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most +appropriate, I am sure, in the presence of such writers as +Bryant, Halleck, and—but I suppose I must not mention the +ladies here—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">The Literature +of America</span>:</p> +<p>She well knows how to do honour to her own literature and to +that of other lands, when she chooses Washington Irving for her +representative in the country of Cervantes.</p> +<h2><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>VI.<br +/> +MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[This address was delivered at a soirée +of the members of the Manchester, Athenæum, at which Mr. +Dickens presided. Among the other speakers on the occasion +were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—I am +sure I need scarcely tell you that I am very proud and happy; and +that I take it as a great distinction to be asked to come amongst +you on an occasion such as this, when, even with the brilliant +and beautiful spectacle which I see before me, I can hail it as +the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance of all, that we +assemble together here, even here, upon neutral ground, where we +have no more knowledge of party difficulties, or public +animosities between side and side, or between man and man, than +if we were a public meeting in the commonwealth of Utopia.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other +grounds, this assembly is not less interesting to me, believe +me—although, personally, almost a stranger here—than +it is interesting to you; and I take it, that it is not of +greater importance to all of us than it is to every man who has +learned to know that he has an interest in the moral and social +elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, happiness, and +improvement, of the community at large. Not even those who +saw the first foundation of your Athenæum laid, and watched +its progress, as I know they did, almost as tenderly as if it +were the progress of a living creature, until it reared its +beautiful front, an honour to the town—not even they, nor +even you who, within its walls, have tasted its usefulness, and +put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am persuaded, to +exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may thrive and +prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, +who—whether consciously or unconsciously, matters +not—have, in the principle of its success and bright +example, a deep and personal concern.</p> +<p>It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising +town, this little world of labour, that she should stand out +foremost in the foremost rank in such a cause. It well +becomes her, that, among her numerous and noble public +institutions, she should have a splendid temple sacred to the +education and improvement of a large class of those who, in their +various useful stations, assist in the production of our wealth, +and in rendering her name famous through the world. I think +it is grand to know, that, while her factories re-echo with the +clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl and rattle of +machinery, the immortal mechanism of God’s own hand, the +mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and +tended in a palace of its own. That it is a structure +deeply fixed and rooted in the public spirit of this place, and +built to last, I have no more doubt, judging from the spectacle I +see before me, and from what I know of its brief history, than I +have of the reality of these walls that hem us in, and the +pillars that spring up about us.</p> +<p>You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the +Athenæum was projected at a time when commerce was in a +vigorous and flourishing condition, and when those classes of +society to which it particularly addresses itself were fully +employed, and in the receipt of regular incomes. A season +of depression almost without a parallel ensued, and large numbers +of young men employed in warehouses and offices suddenly found +their occupation gone, and themselves reduced to very straitened +and penurious circumstances. This altered state of things +led, as I am told, to the compulsory withdrawal of many of the +members, to a proportionate decrease in the expected funds, and +to the incurrence of a debt of £3,000. By the very +great zeal and energy of all concerned, and by the liberality of +those to whom they applied for help, that debt is now in rapid +course of being discharged. A little more of the same +indefatigable exertion on the one hand, and a little more of the +same community of feeling upon the other, and there will be no +such thing; the figures will be blotted out for good and all, +and, from that time, the Athenæum may be said to belong to +you, and to your heirs for ever.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most +thriving, and in its least flourishing condition—here, with +its cheerful rooms, its pleasant and instructive lectures, its +improving library of 6,000 volumes, its classes for the study of +the foreign languages, elocution, music; its opportunities of +discussion and debate, of healthful bodily exercise, and, though +last not least—for by this I set great store, as a very +novel and excellent provision—its opportunities of +blameless, rational enjoyment, here it is, open to every youth +and man in this great town, accessible to every bee in this vast +hive, who, for all these benefits, and the inestimable ends to +which they lead, can set aside one sixpence weekly. I do +look upon the reduction of the subscription, and upon the fact +that the number of members has considerably more than doubled +within the last twelve months, as strides in the path of the very +best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the history of +mankind.</p> +<p>I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a +prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake +up the ashes of the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be +urged by men of all parties against institutions such as this, +whose interests we are met to promote; but their philosophy was +always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short +sentence. How often have we heard from a large class of men +wise in their generation, who would really seem to be born and +bred for no other purpose than to pass into currency counterfeit +and mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of +some other criminals to utter base coin—how often have we +heard from them, as an all-convincing argument, that “a +little learning is a dangerous thing?” Why, a little +hanging was considered a very dangerous thing, according to the +same authorities, with this difference, that, because a little +hanging was dangerous, we had a great deal of it; and, because a +little learning was dangerous, we were to have none at all. +Why, when I hear such cruel absurdities gravely reiterated, I do +sometimes begin to doubt whether the parrots of society are not +more pernicious to its interests than its birds of prey. I +should be glad to hear such people’s estimate of the +comparative danger of “a little learning” and a vast +amount of ignorance; I should be glad to know which they consider +the most prolific parent of misery and crime. Descending a +little lower in the social scale, I should be glad to assist them +in their calculations, by carrying them into certain gaols and +nightly refuges I know of, where my own heart dies within me, +when I see thousands of immortal creatures condemned, without +alternative or choice, to tread, not what our great poet calls +the “primrose path” to the everlasting bonfire, but +one of jaded flints and stones, laid down by brutal ignorance, +and held together, like the solid rocks, by years of this most +wicked axiom.</p> +<p>Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright +in deed and thought, whether they would rather have ignorant or +enlightened persons in their own employment? Why, we have +had their answer in this building; we have it in this company; we +have it emphatically given in the munificent generosity of your +own merchants of Manchester, of all sects and kinds, when this +establishment was first proposed. But are the advantages +derivable by the people from institutions such as this, only of a +negative character? If a little learning be an innocent +thing, has it no distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence +upon the mind? The old doggerel rhyme, so often written in +the beginning of books, says that</p> +<blockquote><p>“When house and lands are gone and spent,<br +/> +Then learning is most excellent;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, and say +that</p> +<blockquote><p>“Though house and lands be never got,<br /> +Learning can give what they can<i>not</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned +by every man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a +place as the Athenæum, is self-respect—an inward +dignity of character, which, once acquired and righteously +maintained, nothing—no, not the hardest drudgery, nor the +direst poverty—can vanquish. Though he should find it +hard for a season even to keep the wolf—hunger—from +his door, let him but once have chased the +dragon—ignorance—from his hearth, and self-respect +and hope are left him. You could no more deprive him of +those sustaining qualities by loss or destruction of his worldly +goods, than you could, by plucking out his eyes, take from him an +internal consciousness of the bright glory of the sun.</p> +<p>The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his +sphere of hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a +place as the Athenæum, acquires for himself that property +of soul which has in all times upheld struggling men of every +degree, but self-made men especially and always. He secures +to himself that faithful companion which, while it has ever lent +the light of its countenance to men of rank and eminence who have +deserved it, has ever shed its brightest consolations on men of +low estate and almost hopeless means. It took its patient +seat beside Sir Walter Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; +it laid its head upon the block with More; but it did not disdain +to watch the stars with Ferguson, the shepherd’s boy; it +walked the streets in mean attire with Crabbe; it was a poor +barber here in Lancashire with Arkwright; it was a +tallow-chandler’s son with Franklin; it worked at +shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the plough +with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, it +whispers courage even at this day in ears I could name in +Sheffield and in Manchester.</p> +<p>The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place +learns, the better, gentler, kinder man he must become. +When he knows how much great minds have suffered for the truth in +every age and time, and to what dismal persecutions opinion has +been exposed, he will become more tolerant of other men’s +belief in all matters, and will incline more leniently to their +sentiments when they chance to differ from his own. +Understanding that the relations between himself and his +employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility, he will +discharge his part of the implied contract cheerfully, +satisfactorily, and honourably; for the history of every useful +life warns him to shape his course in that direction.</p> +<p>The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish +kind, but extend themselves to his home, and to those whom it +contains. Something of what he hears or reads within such +walls can scarcely fail to become at times a topic of discourse +by his own fireside, nor can it ever fail to lead to larger +sympathies with man, and to a higher veneration for the great +Creator of all the wonders of this universe. It appears to +his home and his homely feeling in other ways; for at certain +times he carries there his wife and daughter, or his sister, or, +possibly, some bright-eyed acquaintance of a more tender +description. Judging from what I see before me, I think it +is very likely; I am sure I would if I could. He takes her +there to enjoy a pleasant evening, to be gay and happy. +Sometimes it may possibly happen that he dates his tenderness +from the Athenæum. I think that is a very excellent +thing, too, and not the least among the advantages of the +institution. In any case, I am sure the number of bright +eyes and beaming faces which grace this meeting to-night by their +presence, will never be among the least of its excellences in my +recollection.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, +the pleasing task your favour has devolved upon me, or the strong +and inspiring confirmation I have to-night, of all the hopes and +reliances I have ever placed upon institutions of this +nature. In the latter point of view—in their bearing +upon this latter point—I regard them as of great +importance, deeming that the more intelligent and reflective +society in the mass becomes, and the more readers there are, the +more distinctly writers of all kinds will be able to throw +themselves upon the truthful feeling of the people and the more +honoured and the more useful literature must be. At the +same time, I must confess that, if there had been an +Athenæum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, +some leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons +which was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very +marketably haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and +posterity might probably have lacked the information that certain +monsters of virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a +much better and wider scale, let me say it once again—it is +in the effect of such institutions upon the great social system, +and the peace and happiness of mankind, that I delight to +contemplate them; and, in my heart, I am quite certain that long +after your institution, and others of the same nature, have +crumbled into dust, the noble harvest of the seed sown in them +will shine out brightly in the wisdom, the mercy, and the +forbearance of another race.</p> +<h2><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>VII.<br /> +LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following address was delivered at a +soirée of the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution, at +which Mr. Dickens presided.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—It was +rather hard of you to take away my breath before I spoke a word; +but I would not thank you, even if I could, for the favour which +has set me in this place, or for the generous kindness which has +greeted me so warmly,—because my first strong impulse still +would be, although I had that power, to lose sight of all +personal considerations in the high intent and meaning of this +numerous assemblage, in the contemplation of the noble objects to +which this building is devoted, of its brilliant and inspiring +history, of that rough, upward track, so bravely trodden, which +it leaves behind, and that bright path of steadily-increasing +usefulness which lies stretched out before it. My first +strong impulse still would be to exchange congratulations with +you, as the members of one united family, on the thriving vigour +of this strongest child of a strong race. My first strong +impulse still would be, though everybody here had twice as many +hundreds of hands as there are hundreds of persons present, to +shake them in the spirit, everyone, always, allow me to say, +excepting those hands (and there are a few such here), which, +with the constitutional infirmity of human nature, I would rather +salute in some more tender fashion.</p> +<p>When I first had the honour of communicating with your +Committee with reference to this celebration, I had some selfish +hopes that the visit proposed to me might turn out to be one of +congratulation, or, at least, of solicitous inquiry; for they who +receive a visitor in any season of distress are easily touched +and moved by what he says, and I entertained some confident +expectation of making a mighty strong impression on you. +But, when I came to look over the printed documents which were +forwarded to me at the same time, and with which you are all +tolerably familiar, these anticipations very speedily vanished, +and left me bereft of all consolation, but the triumphant feeling +to which I have referred. For what do I find, on looking +over those brief chronicles of this swift conquest over ignorance +and prejudice, in which no blood has been poured out, and no +treaty signed but that one sacred compact which recognises the +just right of every man, whatever his belief, or however humble +his degree, to aspire, and to have some means of aspiring, to be +a better and a wiser man? I find that, in 1825, certain +misguided and turbulent persons proposed to erect in Liverpool an +unpopular, dangerous, irreligious, and revolutionary +establishment, called a Mechanics’ Institution; that, in +1835, Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on pretty +comfortably in the meantime, in spite of it, the first stone of a +new and spacious edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; +that, it was afterwards, at different periods, considerably +enlarged; that, in 1844, conspicuous amongst the public beauties +of a beautiful town, here it stands triumphant, its enemies lived +down, its former students attesting, in their various useful +callings and pursuits, the sound, practical information it +afforded them; its members numbering considerably more than +3,000, and setting in rapidly for 6,000 at least; its library +comprehending 11,000 volumes, and daily sending forth its +hundreds of books into private homes; its staff of masters and +officers, amounting to half-a-hundred in themselves; its schools, +conveying every sort of instruction, high and low, adapted to the +labour, means, exigencies, and convenience of nearly every class +and grade of persons. I was here this morning, and in its +spacious halls I found stores of the wonders worked by nature in +the air, in the forest, in the cavern, and in the +sea—stores of the surpassing engines devised by science for +the better knowledge of other worlds, and the greater happiness +of this—stores of those gentler works of art, which, though +achieved in perishable stone, by yet more perishable hands of +dust, are in their influence immortal. With such means at +their command, so well-directed, so cheaply shared, and so +extensively diffused, well may your Committee say, as they have +done in one of their Reports, that the success of this +establishment has far exceeded their most sanguine +expectations.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whose +words they quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the wonderful +effects of little things and small beginnings, that the influence +of the loadstone was first discovered in particles of iron, and +not in iron bars, so they may lay it to their hearts, that when +they combined together to form the institution which has risen to +this majestic height, they issued on a field of enterprise, the +glorious end of which they cannot even now discern. Every +man who has felt the advantages of, or has received improvement +in this place, carries its benefits into the society in which he +moves, and puts them out at compound interest; and what the +blessed sum may be at last, no man can tell. Ladies and +gentlemen, with that Christian prelate whose name appears on your +list of honorary Members; that good and liberal man who once +addressed you within these walls, in a spirit worthy of his +calling, and of his High Master—I look forward from this +place, as from a tower, to the time when high and low, and rich +and poor, shall mutually assist, improve, and educate each +other.</p> +<p>I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, with +its 3,200 members, and at least 3,200 arguments in every one, to +enter on any advocacy of the principle of Mechanics’ +Institutions, or to discuss the subject with those who do or ever +did object to them. I should as soon think of arguing the +point with those untutored savages whose mode of life you last +year had the opportunity of witnessing; indeed, I am strongly +inclined to believe them by far the more rational class of the +two. Moreover, if the institution itself be not a +sufficient answer to all such objections, then there is no such +thing in fact or reason, human or divine. Neither will I +venture to enter into those details of the management of this +place which struck me most on the perusal of its papers; but I +cannot help saying how much impressed and gratified I was, as +everybody must be who comes to their perusal for the first time, +by the extraordinary munificence with which this institution has +been endowed by certain gentlemen.</p> +<p>Amongst the peculiar features of management which made the +greatest impression on me, I may observe that that regulation +which empowers fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, +to introduce their sons who are minors; and masters, on payment +of the astoundingly small sum of five shillings annually, in like +manner their apprentices, is not the least valuable of its +privileges; and, certainly not the one least valuable to +society. And, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot say to you +what pleasure I derived from the perusal of an apparently +excellent report in your local papers of a meeting held here some +short time since, in aid of the formation of a girls’ +school in connexion with this institution. This is a new +and striking chapter in the history of these institutions; it +does equal credit to the gallantry and policy of this, and +disposes one to say of it with a slight parody on the words of +Burns, that</p> +<blockquote><p>“Its ’prentice han’ it tried on +man,<br /> +And then it <i>taught</i> the lasses, O.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessons are +oftenest heeded in after life, should be well taught themselves, +is a proposition few reasonable men will gainsay; and, certainly, +to breed up good husbands on the one hand, and good wives on the +other, does appear as reasonable and straightforward a plan as +could well be devised for the improvement of the next +generation.</p> +<p>This, and what I see before me, naturally brings me to our +fairer members, in respect of whom I have no doubt you will agree +with me, that they ought to be admitted to the widest possible +extent, and on the lowest possible terms; and, ladies, let me +venture to say to you, that you never did a wiser thing in all +your lives than when you turned your favourable regard on such an +establishment as this—for wherever the light of knowledge +is diffused, wherever the humanizing influence of the arts and +sciences extends itself, wherever there is the clearest +perception of what is beautiful, and good, and most redeeming, +amid all the faults and vices of mankind, there your character, +your virtues, your graces, your better nature, will be the best +appreciated, and there the truest homage will be proudly paid to +you. You show best, trust me, in the clearest light; and +every ray that falls upon you at your own firesides, from any +book or thought communicated within these walls, will raise you +nearer to the angels in the eyes you care for most.</p> +<p>I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen, +between you and the pleasure we all anticipate in hearing other +gentlemen, and in enjoying those social pleasures with which it +is a main part of the wisdom of this society to adorn and relieve +its graver pursuits. We all feel, I am sure, being here, +that we are truly interested in the cause of human improvement +and rational education, and that we pledge ourselves, everyone as +far as in him lies, to extend the knowledge of the benefits +afforded in this place, and to bear honest witness in its +favour. To those who yet remain without its walls, but have +the means of purchasing its advantages, we make appeal, and in a +friendly and forbearing spirit say, “Come in, and be +convinced—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Who enters here, leaves <i>doubt</i> +behind.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and are +superior to its advantages, so much the more should you make one +in sympathy with those who are below you. Beneath this roof +we breed the men who, in the time to come, must be found working +for good or evil, in every quarter of society. If mutual +respect and forbearance among various classes be not found here, +where so many men are trained up in so many grades, to enter on +so many roads of life, dating their entry from one common +starting-point, as they are all approaching, by various paths, +one common end, where else can that great lesson be +imbibed? Differences of wealth, of rank, of intellect, we +know there must be, and we respect them; but we would give to all +the means of taking out one patent of nobility, and we define it, +in the words of a great living poet, who is one of us, and who +uses his great gifts, as he holds them in trust, for the general +welfare—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Howe’er it be, it seems to me<br /> +’Tis only noble to be good:<br /> +True hearts are more than coronets,<br /> +And simple faith than Norman blood.” <a +name="citation88"></a><a href="#footnote88" +class="citation">[88]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>VIII.<br /> +BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was delivered at a +Conversazione, in aid of the funds of the Birmingham Polytechnic +Institution, at which Mr Dickens presided.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">You</span> will think it very unwise, or +very self-denying in me, in such an assembly, in such a splendid +scene, and after such a welcome, to congratulate myself on having +nothing new to say to you: but I do so, notwithstanding. To +say nothing of places nearer home, I had the honour of attending +at Manchester, shortly before Christmas, and at Liverpool, only +the night before last, for a purpose similar to that which brings +you together this evening; and looking down a short perspective +of similar engagements, I feel gratification at the thought that +I shall very soon have nothing at all to say; in which case, I +shall be content to stake my reputation, like the Spectator of +Addison, and that other great periodical speaker, the Speaker of +the House of Commons, on my powers of listening.</p> +<p>This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with, are +not the only reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial, and peculiar +interest in this night’s proceedings. The Polytechnic +Institution of Birmingham is in its infancy—struggling into +life under all those adverse and disadvantageous circumstances +which, to a greater or less extent, naturally beset all infancy; +but I would much rather connect myself with it now, however +humble, in its days of difficulty and of danger, than look back +on its origin when it may have become strong, and rich, and +powerful. I should prefer an intimate association with it +now, in its early days and apparent struggles, to becoming its +advocate and acquaintance, its fair-weather friend, in its high +and palmy days. I would rather be able to say I knew it in +its swaddling-clothes, than in maturer age. Its two elder +brothers have grown old and died: their chests were +weak—about their cradles nurses shook their heads, and +gossips groaned; but the present institution shot up, amidst the +ruin of those which have fallen, with an indomitable +constitution, with vigorous and with steady pulse; temperate, +wise, and of good repute; and by perseverance it has become a +very giant. Birmingham is, in my mind and in the minds of +most men, associated with many giants; and I no more believe that +this young institution will turn out sickly, dwarfish, or of +stunted growth, than I do that when the glass-slipper of my +chairmanship shall fall off, and the clock strike twelve +to-night, this hall will be turned into a pumpkin. I found +that strong belief upon the splendid array of grace and beauty by +which I am surrounded, and which, if it only had one-hundredth +part of the effect upon others it has upon me, could do anything +it pleased with anything and anybody. I found my strong +conviction, in the second place, upon the public spirit of the +town of Birmingham—upon the name and fame of its +capitalists and working men; upon the greatness and importance of +its merchants and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are +constantly in progress; upon the skill and intelligence of its +artisans, which are daily developed; and the increasing knowledge +of all portions of the community. All these reasons lead me +to the conclusion that your institution will advance—that +it will and must progress, and that you will not be content with +lingering leagues behind.</p> +<p>I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion +with the object of this assembly; and it is, that the resolutions +about to be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a +sectarian or class nature; that they do not confine themselves to +any one single institution, but assert the great and omnipotent +principles of comprehensive education everywhere and under every +circumstance. I beg leave to say that I concur, heart and +hand, in those principles, and will do all in my power for their +advancement; for I hold, in accordance with the imperfect +knowledge which I possess, that it is impossible for any fabric +of society to go on day after day, and year after year, from +father to son, and from grandfather to grandson, punishing men +for not engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice of +crime, without showing them what virtue is, and where it best can +be found—in justice, religion, and truth. The only +reason that can possibly be adduced against it is one founded on +fiction—namely, the case where an obdurate old geni, in the +“Arabian Nights,” was bound upon taking the life of a +merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible +son. I recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of +charming fancies, which I consider not inappropriate: it is a +case where a powerful spirit has been imprisoned at the bottom of +the sea, in a casket with a leaden cover, and the seal of Solomon +upon it; there he had lain neglected for many centuries, and +during that period had made many different vows: at first, that +he would reward magnificently those who should release him; and +at last, that he would destroy them. Now, there is a spirit +of great power—the Spirit of Ignorance—which is shut +up in a vessel of leaden composition, and sealed with the seal of +many, many Solomons, and which is effectually in the same +position: release it in time, and it will bless, restore, and +reanimate society; but let it lie under the rolling waves of +years, and its blind revenge is sure to lead to certain +destruction. That there are classes which, if rightly +treated, constitute strength, and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it +impossible to deny—by these classes I mean industrious, +intelligent, and honourably independent men, in whom the higher +classes of Birmingham are especially interested, and bound to +afford them the means of instruction and improvement, and to +ameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be it from +me (and I wish to be most particularly understood) to attempt to +depreciate the excellent Church Instruction Societies, or the +worthy, sincere, and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen +by whom they are usually conducted; on the contrary, I believe +that they have done, and are doing, much good, and are deserving +of high praise; but I hope that, without offence, in a community +such as Birmingham, there are other objects not unworthy in the +sight of heaven, and objects of recognised utility which are +worthy of support—principles which are practised in word +and deed in Polytechnic Institutions—principles for the +diffusion of which honest men of all degrees and of every creed +might associate together, on an independent footing and on +neutral ground, and at a small expense, for the better +understanding and the greater consideration of each other, and +for the better cultivation of the happiness of all: for it surely +cannot be allowed that those who labour day by day, surrounded by +machinery, shall be permitted to degenerate into machines +themselves, but, on the contrary, they should assert their common +origin from their Creator, at the hands of those who are +responsible and thinking men. There is, indeed, no +difference in the main with respect to the dangers of ignorance +and the advantages of knowledge between those who hold different +opinions—for it is to be observed, that those who are most +distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first +to exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was +pleasantly illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In +the same carriage with me there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel +no delicacy in alluding to him, for I know that he is not in the +room, having got out far short of Birmingham), who expressed +himself most mournfully as to the ruinous effects and rapid +spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the virtues of the +slow-going old stage coaches. Now I, entertaining some +little lingering kindness for the road, made shift to express my +concurrence with the old gentleman’s opinion, without any +great compromise of principle. Well, we got on tolerably +comfortably together, and when the engine, with a frightful +screech, dived into some dark abyss, like some strange aquatic +monster, the old gentleman said it would never do, and I agreed +with him. When it parted from each successive station, with +a shock and a shriek as if it had had a double-tooth drawn, the +old gentleman shook his head, and I shook mine. When he +burst forth against such new-fangled notions, and said no good +could come of them, I did not contest the point. But I +found that when the speed of the engine was abated, or there was +a prolonged stay at any station, up the old gentleman was at +arms, and his watch was instantly out of his pocket, denouncing +the slowness of our progress. Now I could not help +comparing this old gentleman to that ingenious class of persons +who are in the constant habit of declaiming against the vices and +crimes of society, and at the same time are the first and +foremost to assert that vice and crime have not their common +origin in ignorance and discontent.</p> +<p>The good work, however, in spite of all political and party +differences, has been well begun; we are all interested in it; it +is advancing, and cannot be stopped by any opposition, although +it may be retarded in this place or in that, by the indifference +of the middle classes, with whom its successful progress chiefly +rests. Of this success I cannot entertain a doubt; for +whenever the working classes have enjoyed an opportunity of +effectually rebutting accusations which falsehood or +thoughtlessness have brought against them, they always avail +themselves of it, and show themselves in their true characters; +and it was this which made the damage done to a single picture in +the National Gallery of London, by some poor lunatic or cripple, +a mere matter of newspaper notoriety and wonder for some few +days. This, then, establishes a fact evident to the meanest +comprehension—that any given number of thousands of +individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this country, can +pass through the national galleries or museums in seasons of +holiday-making, without damaging, in the slightest degree, those +choice and valuable collections. I do not myself believe +that the working classes ever were the wanton or mischievous +persons they were so often and so long represented to be; but I +rather incline to the opinion that some men take it into their +heads to lay it down as a matter of fact, without being +particular about the premises; and that the idle and the +prejudiced, not wishing to have the trouble of forming opinions +for themselves, take it for granted—until the people have +an opportunity of disproving the stigma and vindicating +themselves before the world.</p> +<p>Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurred +respecting an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with respect +to which a legend existed that the sculptor hanged himself, +because he had neglected to put a girth to the horse. This +story was currently believed for many years, until it was +inspected for altogether a different purpose, and it was found to +have had a girth all the time.</p> +<p>But surely if, as is stated, the people are ill-disposed and +mischievous, that is the best reason that can be offered for +teaching them better; and if they are not, surely that is a +reason for giving them every opportunity of vindicating their +injured reputation; and no better opportunity could possibly be +afforded than that of associating together voluntarily for such +high purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment +of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any +case—nay, in every case—if we would reward honesty, +if we would hold out encouragement to good, if we would eradicate +that which is evil or correct that which is bad, +education—comprehensive, liberal education—is the one +thing needful, and the only effective end. If I might apply +to my purpose, and turn into plain prose some words of +Hamlet—not with reference to any government or party (for +party being, for the most part, an irrational sort of thing, has +no connexion with the object we have in view)—if I might +apply those words to education as Hamlet applied them to the +skull of Yorick, I would say—“Now hie thee to the +council-chamber, and tell them, though they lay it on in sounding +thoughts and learned words an inch thick, to this complexion they +must come at last.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>In answer to a vote of thanks, <a name="citation95"></a><a +href="#footnote95" class="citation">[95]</a> Mr. Dickens said, at +the close of the meeting—</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even—for every +effect which I may have made upon you, the compliment has been +amply returned to me; but at the same time I am as little +disposed to say to you, ‘go and sin no more,’ as I am +to promise for myself that ‘I will never do so +again.’ So long as I can make you laugh and cry, I +will; and you will readily believe me, when I tell you, you +cannot do too much on your parts to show that we are still +cordial and loving friends. To you, ladies of the +Institution, I am deeply and especially indebted. I +sometimes [<i>pointing to the word</i> ‘<i>Boz</i>’ +<i>in front of the great gallery</i>] think there is some small +quantity of magic in that very short name, and that it must +consist in its containing as many letters as the three graces, +and they, every one of them, being of your fair sisterhood.</p> +<p>A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, +for an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man, sometimes +bowstringing his dependants indiscriminately in his moments of +anger, but burying them in great splendour in his moments of +penitence, that whenever intelligence was brought him of a new +plot or turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry was, ‘Who +is she?’ meaning that a woman was at the bottom. Now, +in my small way, I differ from that potentate; for when there is +any good to be attained, the services of any ministering angel +required, my first inquiry is, ‘Where is she?’ and +the answer invariably is, ‘Here.’ Proud and +happy am I indeed to thank you for your generosity—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘A thousand times, good night;<br /> +A thousand times the worse to want your light.’</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>IX.<br +/> +GARDENERS AND GARDENING.<br /> +LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the +Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution was held on the above +date at the London Tavern. The company numbered more than +150. The dessert was worthy of the occasion, and an +admirable effect was produced by a profuse display of natural +flowers upon the tables and in the decoration of the room. +The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in proposing the +toast of the evening, spoke as follows:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> three times three years the +Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution has been stimulated and +encouraged by meetings such as this, and by three times three +cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous career. +[<i>The cheers were warmly given</i>.]</p> +<p>Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel +for the plaintiff with nobody on the other side; but even if I +had been placed in that position ninety times nine, it would +still be my duty to state a few facts from the very short brief +with which I have been provided.</p> +<p>This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During +the first five years of its existence, it was not particularly +robust, and seemed to have been placed in rather a shaded +position, receiving somewhat more than its needful allowance of +cold water. In 1843 it was removed into a more favourable +position, and grafted on a nobler stock, and it has now borne +fruit, and become such a vigorous tree that at present +thirty-five old people daily sit within the shelter of its +branches, and all the pensioners upon the list have been +veritable gardeners, or the wives of gardeners. It is +managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the excellent +rule that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteen +years, and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be placed +upon the pensioners’ list without election, without +canvass, without solicitation, and as his independent +right. I lay very great stress upon that honourable +characteristic of the charity, because the main principle of any +such institution should be to help those who help +themselves. That the Society’s pensioners do not +become such so long as they are able to support themselves, is +evinced by the significant fact that the average age of those now +upon the list is seventy-seven; that they are not wasteful is +proved by the fact that the whole sum expended on their relief is +but £500 a-year; that the Institution does not restrict +itself to any narrow confines, is shown by the circumstance, that +the pensioners come from all parts of England, whilst all the +expenses are paid from the annual income and interest on stock, +and therefore are not disproportionate to its means.</p> +<p>Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a +most unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, an Institution +which has for its President a nobleman <a +name="citation98"></a><a href="#footnote98" +class="citation">[98]</a> whose whole possessions are remarkable +for taste and beauty, and whose gardener’s laurels are +famous throughout the world. In the list of its +vice-presidents there are the names of many noblemen and +gentlemen of great influence and station, and I have been struck +in glancing through the list of its supporters, with the sums +written against the names of the numerous nurserymen and seedsmen +therein comprised. I hope the day will come when every +gardener in England will be a member of the charity.</p> +<p>The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this +Institution affords. His gains are not great; he knows gold +and silver more as being of the colour of fruits and flowers than +by its presence in his pockets; he is subjected to that kind of +labour which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when +old age comes upon him, the gardener is of all men perhaps best +able to appreciate the merits of such an institution.</p> +<p>To all indeed, present and absent, who are descended from the +first</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“gardener Adam +and his wife,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the +culture of flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be +anything, solitary or exclusive. The wind that blows over +the cottager’s porch, sweeps also over the grounds of the +nobleman; and as the rain descends on the just and on the unjust, +so it communicates to all gardeners, both rich and poor, an +interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of the +rich man, in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or a +delightful scent, is, in some sort, the gardener of everybody +else.</p> +<p>The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of +men, and all periods of time. The scholar and the +statesman, men of peace and men of war, have agreed in all ages +to delight in gardens. The most ancient people of the earth +had gardens where there is now nothing but solitary heaps of +earth. The poor man in crowded cities gardens still in jugs +and basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; +and even the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely cell, +after years and years of solitary confinement. Surely, +then, the gardener who produces shapes and objects so lovely and +so comforting, should have some hold upon the world’s +remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort.</p> +<p>I will call upon you to drink “Prosperity to the +Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution,” and I beg to +couple with that toast the name of its noble President, the Duke +of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his deeds, and who +has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre which no +title and no riches could confer.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:—]</p> +<p>My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I +could wish there were a closer parallel between myself and the +American aloe. It is particularly agreeable and appropriate +to know that the parents of this Institution are to be found in +the seed and nursery trade; and the seed having yielded such good +fruit, and the nursery having produced such a healthy child, I +have the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of the parents +of the Institution.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens +said:—]</p> +<p>My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me +that its conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always +three in number. Whether that conventionality has reference +to the Three Graces, or to those very significant letters, L., +S., D., I do not know. Those mystic letters are, however, +most important, and no society can have officers of more +importance than its Treasurers, nor can it possibly give them too +much to do.</p> +<h2><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>X.<br /> +BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of +the Society of Artists, in Temple Row, Birmingham, a large +company assembled to witness the presentation of a testimonial to +Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of a silver-gilt salver and a +diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute, and the +address which accompanied it, in the following words:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>, I feel it very +difficult, I assure you, to tender my acknowledgments to you, and +through you, to those many friends of mine whom you represent, +for this honour and distinction which you have conferred upon +me. I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the power +of no great representative of numbers of people to awaken such +happiness in me as is inspired by this token of goodwill and +remembrance, coming to me direct and fresh from the numbers +themselves. I am truly sensible, gentlemen, that my friends +who have united in this address are partial in their kindness, +and regard what I have done with too great favour. But I +may say, with reference to one class—some members of which, +I presume, are included there—that I should in my own eyes +be very unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous +feeling which has been evinced, and this occasion, instead of +pleasure, would give me nothing but pain, if I was unable to +assure them, and those who are in front of this assembly, that +what the working people have found me towards them in my books, I +am throughout my life. Gentlemen, whenever I have tried to +hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience, gentleness, the +reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to persuasion, and +their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have done so +because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and +have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to +communicate to others.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all +price to me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful +specimens of the workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I +assure you, and with the liveliest gratitude. You remember +something, I daresay, of the old romantic stories of those +charmed rings which would lose their brilliance when their wearer +was in danger, or would press his finger reproachfully when he +was going to do wrong. In the very improbable event of my +being in the least danger of deserting the principles which have +won me these tokens, I am sure the diamond in that ring would +assume a clouded aspect to my faithless eye, and would, I know, +squeeze a throb of pain out of my treacherous heart. But I +have not the least misgiving on that point; and, in this +confident expectation, I shall remove my own old diamond ring +from my left hand, and in future wear the Birmingham ring on my +right, where its grasp will keep me in mind of the good friends I +have here, and in vivid remembrance of this happy hour.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the +Society to whom these rooms belong, that the presentation has +taken place in an atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an +apartment decorated with so many beautiful works of art, among +which I recognize before me the productions of friends of mine, +whose labours and triumphs will never be subjects of indifference +to me. I thank those gentlemen for giving me the +opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some +connexion with their own proceedings; and, though last not least, +I tender my acknowledgments to that charming presence, without +which nothing beautiful can be complete, and which is endearingly +associated with rings of a plainer description, and which, I must +confess, awakens in my mind at the present moment a feeling of +regret that I am not in a condition to make an offer of these +testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to commend me very +earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and to assure +them of my affectionate and heartfelt respect.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>The company then adjourned to Dee’s Hotel, where a +banquet took place, at which about 220 persons were present, +among whom were some of the most distinguished of the Royal +Academicians. To the toast of “The Literature of +England,” Mr. Dickens responded as follows:—</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many +labourers in that great field of literature to which you have +pledged the toast, to thank you for the tribute you have paid to +it. Such an honour, rendered by acclamation in such a place +as this, seems to me, if I may follow on the same side as the +venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) who lately addressed you, and who +has inspired me with a gratification I can never +forget—such an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to +me a two-sided illustration of the position that literature holds +in these latter and, of course, “degenerate” +days. To the great compact phalanx of the people, by whose +industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in +money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many others like it, +have arisen—to that great centre of support, that +comprehensive experience, and that beating heart, literature has +turned happily from individual patrons—sometimes +munificent, often sordid, always few—and has there found at +once its highest purpose, its natural range of action, and its +best reward. Therefore it is right also, as it seems to me, +not only that literature should receive honour here, but that it +should render honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly +done good to Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to +it. From the shame of the purchased dedication, from the +scurrilous and dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependent seat +on sufferance at my Lord Duke’s table to-day, and from the +sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow—from that venality +which, by a fine moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even +to a greater extent than authors, because the statesman +entertained a low belief in the universality of corruption, while +the author yielded only to the dire necessity of his +calling—from all such evils the people have set literature +free. And my creed in the exercise of that profession is, +that literature cannot be too faithful to the people in +return—cannot too ardently advocate the cause of their +advancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have heard it +sometimes said—and what is worse, as expressing something +more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written—that +literature has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated +by being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the +case: nor do I believe that you have made the discovery +either. But let a good book in these “bad” +times be made accessible,—even upon an abstruse and +difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate interest to +mankind,—and my life on it, it shall be extensively bought, +read, and well considered.</p> +<p>Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in +Birmingham at this moment many working men infinitely better +versed in Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine +gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold dedications and dear +books. I ask anyone to consider for himself who, at this +time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to the +dissemination of such useful publications as +“Macaulay’s History,” “Layard’s +Researches,” “Tennyson’s Poems,” +“The Duke of Wellington’s published +Despatches,” or the minutest truths (if any truth can be +called minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a +Faraday? It is with all these things as with the great +music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon art—if we had the +good fortune to listen to one to-morrow—by my distinguished +friend the President of the Royal Academy. However small +the audience, however contracted the circle in the water, in the +first instance, the people are nearer the wider range outside, +and the Sister Arts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome +advantage and improvement from their ready sympathy and cordial +response. I may instance the case of my friend Mr. +Ward’s magnificent picture; <a name="citation105"></a><a +href="#footnote105" class="citation">[105]</a> and the reception +of that picture here is an example that it is not now the +province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, +that it cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great +temple,—on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds +of a drapery—but that it must be imbued with human passions +and action, informed with human right and wrong, and, being so +informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its trial, like the +criminal of old, to be judged by God and its country.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to +trouble you again. For this time I have only once again to +repeat what I have already said. As I begun with +literature, I shall end with it. I would simply say that I +believe no true man, with anything to tell, need have the least +misgiving, either for himself or his message, before a large +number of hearers—always supposing that he be not afflicted +with the coxcombical idea of writing down to the popular +intelligence, instead of writing the popular intelligence up to +himself, if, perchance, he be above it;—and, provided +always that he deliver himself plainly of what is in him, which +seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed that +he has some dim design of making himself understood. On +behalf of that literature to which you have done so much honour, +I beg to thank you most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the +most flattering reception you have given to one whose claim is, +that he has the distinction of making it his profession.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, “The +Educational Institutions of Birmingham,” in the following +speech:</p> +<p>I am requested to propose—or, according to the +hypothesis of my friend, Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary +character of a walking advertisement to advertise to +you—the Educational Institutions of Birmingham; an +advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure in calling +your attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in so many +words, mention the more prominent of these institutions, not +because your local memories require any prompting, but because +the enumeration implies what has been done here, what you are +doing, and what you will yet do. I believe the first is the +King Edward’s Grammar School, with its various branches, +and prominent among them is that most admirable means of training +the wives of working men to be good wives and working wives, the +prime ornament of their homes, and the cause of happiness to +others—I mean those excellent girls’ schools in +various parts of the town, which, under the excellent +superintendence of the principal, I should most sincerely desire +to see in every town in England. Next, I believe, is the +Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging to the body +of Independents, foremost among whose professors literature is +proud to hail Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest +contributors to the Edinburgh Review. The next is the +Queen’s College, which, I may say, is only a newly-born +child; but, in the hands of such an admirable Doctor, we may hope +to see it arrive at a vigorous maturity. The next is the +School of Design, which, as has been well observed by my friend +Sir Charles Eastlake, is invaluable in such a place as this; and, +lastly, there is the Polytechnic Institution, with regard to +which I had long ago occasion to express my profound conviction +that it was of unspeakable importance to such a community as +this, when I had the honour to be present, under the auspices of +your excellent representative, Mr. Scholefield. This is the +last of what has been done in an educational way. They are +all admirable in their kind; but I am glad to find that more is +yet doing. A few days ago I received a Birmingham +newspaper, containing a most interesting account of a preliminary +meeting for the formation of a Reformatory School for juvenile +delinquents. You are not exempt here from the honour of +saving these poor, neglected, and wretched outcasts. I read +of one infant, six years old, who has been twice as many times in +the hands of the police as years have passed over his devoted +head. These are the eggs from which gaol-birds are hatched; +if you wish to check that dreadful brood, you must take the young +and innocent, and have them reared by Christian hands.</p> +<p>Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme +for a new Literary and Scientific Institution, which would be +worthy even of this place, if there was nothing of the kind in +it—an institution, as I understand it, where the words +“exclusion” and “exclusiveness” shall be +quite unknown—where all classes may assemble in common +trust, respect, and confidence—where there shall be a great +gallery of painting and statuary open to the inspection and +admiration of all comers—where there shall be a museum of +models in which industry may observe its various sources of +manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, and +arrive at new results—where the very mines under the earth +and under the sea shall not be forgotten, but presented in little +to the inquiring eye—an institution, in short, where many +and many of the obstacles which now inevitably stand in the +rugged way of the poor inventor shall be smoothed away, and +where, if he have anything in him, he will find encouragement and +hope.</p> +<p>I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body +of gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside their individual +prepossessions on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to +be engaged in a design as patriotic as well can be. They +have the intention of meeting in a few days to advance this great +object, and I call upon you, in drinking this toast, to drink +success to their endeavour, and to make it the pledge by all good +means to promote it.</p> +<p>If I strictly followed out the list of educational +institutions in Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I +intend to stop, merely observing that I have seen within a short +walk of this place one of the most interesting and practical +Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb that has ever come under my +observation. I have seen in the factories and workshops of +Birmingham such beautiful order and regularity, and such great +consideration for the workpeople provided, that they might justly +be entitled to be considered educational too. I have seen +in your splendid Town Hall, when the cheap concerts are going on +there, also an admirable educational institution. I have +seen their results in the demeanour of your working people, +excellently balanced by a nice instinct, as free from servility +on the one hand, as from self-conceit on the other. It is a +perfect delight to have need to ask a question, if only from the +manner of the reply—a manner I never knew to pass unnoticed +by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a +great marry more I have not touched upon, and weaving all into +one good fabric, remember how much is included under the general +head of the Educational Institutions of your town.</p> +<h2><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +110</span>XI.<br /> +LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, +the President, Sir Charles Eastlake, proposed as a toast, +“The Interests of Literature,” and selected for the +representatives of the world of letters, the Dean of St. +Paul’s and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean Milman having +returned thanks.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr Dickens</span> then addressed the +President, who, it should be mentioned, occupied a large and +handsome chair, the back covered with crimson velvet, placed just +before Stanfield’s picture of <i>The Victory</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, +and the honour done him in associating his name with it, said +that those acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he +was unable to recognize in this toast the President’s usual +disinterestedness; since English literature could scarcely be +remembered in any place, and, certainly, not in a school of art, +without a very distinct remembrance of his own tasteful writings, +to say nothing of that other and better part of himself, which, +unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions.</p> +<p>If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount +Hardinge), he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief +thanks with one word of reference to the noble picture painted by +a very dear friend of his, which was a little eclipsed that +evening by the radiant and rubicund chair which the President now +so happily toned down, he would beg leave to say that, as +literature could nowhere be more appropriately honoured than in +that place, so he thought she could nowhere feel a higher +gratification in the ties that bound her to the sister +arts. He ever felt in that place that literature found, +through their instrumentality, always a new expression, and in a +universal language.</p> +<h2><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>XII.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 1, 1853.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the +Mansion House, on the above date, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed +as a toast “Anglo-Saxon Literature,” and alluded to +Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction as a means of awakening +attention to the condition of the oppressed and suffering +classes:—]</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Mr. Dickens</span> replied to this +toast in a graceful and playful strain. In the former part +of the evening, in reply to a toast on the chancery department, +Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the Lord +Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not +distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without +reference to it. The amount of what he said was, that the +Court had received a great many more hard opinions than it +merited; that they had been parsimoniously obliged to perform a +great amount of business by a very inadequate number of judges; +but that more recently the number of judges had been increased to +seven, and there was reason to hope that all business brought +before it would now be performed without unnecessary delay.</p> +<p>“Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of +intelligence; said he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he +trusted now that a suit, in which he was greatly interested, +would speedily come to an end. I heard a little +by-conversation between Mr. Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, +who sat opposite me, in which the latter seemed to be reiterating +the same assertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not +extraordinarily complicated might be got through with in three +months. Mr. Dickens said he was very happy to hear it; but +I fancied there was a little shade of incredulity in his manner; +however, the incident showed one thing, that is, that the +chancery were not insensible to the representations of Dickens; +but the whole tone of the thing was quite good-natured and +agreeable.” <a name="citation113"></a><a +href="#footnote113" class="citation">[113]</a></p> +<h2><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>XIII.<br /> +BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The first of the Readings generously given by +Mr. Charles Dickens on behalf of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute, took place on Tuesday evening, December 27, 1853, at +the Birmingham Town Hall, where, notwithstanding the inclemency +of the weather, nearly two thousand persons had assembled. +The work selected was the <i>Christmas Carol</i>. The high +mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate +with remarkable force the various characters of the story, and +with admirable skill to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving +Scrooge, to trusting and thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the +genial fulness of Scrooge’s nephew, to the hideous mirth of +the party assembled in Old Joe the Ragshop-keeper’s +parlour. The reading occupied more than three hours, but so +interested were the audience, that only one or two left the Hall +previously to its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts +of applause attested the successful discharge of the +reader’s arduous task. On Thursday evening Mr. +Dickens read <i>The Cricket on the Hearth</i>. The Hall was +again well ruled, and the tale, though deficient in the dramatic +interest of the <i>Carol</i>, was listened to with attention, and +rewarded with repeated applause. On Friday evening, the +<i>Christmas Carol</i> was read a second time to a large +assemblage of work-people, for whom, at Mr. Dickens’s +special request, the major part of the vast edifice was +reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. Dickens delivered +the following brief address, almost every sentence of which was +received with loudly expressed applause.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My Good Friends</span>,—When I first +imparted to the committee of the projected Institute my +particular wish that on one of the evenings of my readings here +the main body of my audience should be composed of working men +and their families, I was animated by two desires; first, by the +wish to have the great pleasure of meeting you face to face at +this Christmas time, and accompany you myself through one of my +little Christmas books; and second, by the wish to have an +opportunity of stating publicly in your presence, and in the +presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the Institute +will, from the beginning, recognise one great +principle—strong in reason and justice—which I +believe to be essential to the very life of such an +Institution. It is, that the working man shall, from the +first unto the last, have a share in the management of an +Institution which is designed for his benefit, and which calls +itself by his name.</p> +<p>I have no fear here of being misunderstood—of being +supposed to mean too much in this. If there ever was a time +when any one class could of itself do much for its own good, and +for the welfare of society—which I greatly doubt—that +time is unquestionably past. It is in the fusion of +different classes, without confusion; in the bringing together of +employers and employed; in the creating of a better common +understanding among those whose interests are identical, who +depend upon each other, who are vitally essential to each other, +and who never can be in unnatural antagonism without deplorable +results, that one of the chief principles of a Mechanics’ +Institution should consist. In this world a great deal of +the bitterness among us arises from an imperfect understanding of +one another. Erect in Birmingham a great Educational +Institution, properly educational; educational of the feelings as +well as of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham men +contribute; in which all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein +all orders of Birmingham men are faithfully represented—and +you will erect a Temple of Concord here which will be a model +edifice to the whole of England.</p> +<p>Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans’ +Committee, which not long ago considered the establishment of the +Institute so sensibly, and supported it so heartily, I earnestly +entreat the gentlemen—earnest I know in the good work, and +who are now among us,—by all means to avoid the great +shortcoming of similar institutions; and in asking the working +man for his confidence, to set him the great example and give him +theirs in return. You will judge for yourselves if I +promise too much for the working man, when I say that he will +stand by such an enterprise with the utmost of his patience, his +perseverance, sense, and support; that I am sure he will need no +charitable aid or condescending patronage; but will readily and +cheerfully pay for the advantages which it confers; that he will +prepare himself in individual cases where he feels that the +adverse circumstances around him have rendered it necessary; in a +word, that he will feel his responsibility like an honest man, +and will most honestly and manfully discharge it. I now +proceed to the pleasant task to which I assure you I have looked +forward for a long time.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of +thanks, and “three cheers, with three times +three.” As soon as the enthusiasm of the audience +would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens said:—</p> +<p>You have heard so much of my voice since we met to-night, that +I will only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your +regard, that I am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any +little service I have rendered to you I have freely rendered from +my heart; that I hope to become an honorary member of your great +Institution, and will meet you often there when it becomes +practically useful; that I thank you most affectionately for this +new mark of your sympathy and approval; and that I wish you many +happy returns of this great birthday-time, and many prosperous +years.</p> +<h2><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>XIV.<br /> +COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.<br /> +LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens +at the Anniversary Dinner in commemoration of the foundation of +the Commercial Travellers’ Schools, held at the London +Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickens presided on this +occasion, and proposed the toasts.]</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">think</span> it may be assumed that most +of us here present know something about travelling. I do +not mean in distant regions or foreign countries, although I dare +say some of us have had experience in that way, but at home, and +within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of +us have had experience of the extinct “fast coaches,” +the “Wonders,” “Taglionis,” and +“Tallyhos,” of other days. I daresay most of us +remember certain modest postchaises, dragging us down +interminable roads, through slush and mud, to little country +towns with no visible population, except half-a-dozen men in +smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women with umbrellas and pattens, and +a washed-out dog or so shivering under the gables, to complete +the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I dare say, if +so minded, about our recollections of the “Talbot,” +the “Queen’s Head,” or the “Lion” +of those days. We have all been to that room on the ground +floor on one side of the old inn yard, not quite free from a +certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the +sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the box-coats +that hung from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid us at +every turn, like so many human man-traps; where county members, +framed and glazed, were eternally presenting that petition which, +somehow or other, had made their glory in the county, although +nothing else had ever come of it. Where the books in the +windows always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves, and +where the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the +night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarly singular period +of the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent +on the comforts of our favourite hotel, wherever it was—its +beds, its stables, its vast amount of posting, its excellent +cheese, its head waiter, its capital dishes, its pigeon-pies, or +its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal our chaste and +innocent admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal regard for +its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic once +writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, +gave her the character of being an “eminently +gatherable-to-one’s-arms sort of person.” +Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat similar tribute +to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided at our +hotels.</p> +<p>With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are +all, no doubt, equally familiar. We know all about that +station to which we must take our ticket, although we never get +there; and the other one at which we arrive after dark, certain +to find it half a mile from the town, where the old road is sure +to have been abolished, and the new road is going to be +made—where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and +the new one is not half built up. We know all about that +party on the platform who, with the best intentions, can do +nothing for our luggage except pitch it into all sorts of +unattainable places. We know all about that short omnibus, +in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger of the +crown of one’s hat; and about that fly, whose leading +peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted. We +know, too, how instantaneously the lights of the station +disappear when the train starts, and about that grope to the new +Railway Hotel, which will be an excellent house when the +customers come, but which at present has nothing to offer but a +liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime.</p> +<p>I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the +object of increasing your interest in the purpose of this +night’s assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his +own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his +wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson +unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. He may +have his experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; +but home is the best, after all, and its pleasures are the most +heartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and +gentlemen, every one must be prepared to learn that commercial +travellers, as a body, know how to prize those domestic relations +from which their pursuits so frequently sever them; for no one +could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing +testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in +founding and maintaining a school for the children of deceased or +unfortunate members of their own body; those children who now +appeal to you in mute but eloquent terms from the gallery.</p> +<p>It is to support that school, founded with such high and +friendly objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so +useful in its solid and practical results, that we are here +to-night. It is to roof that building which is to shelter +the children of your deceased friends with one crowning ornament, +the best that any building can have, namely, a receipt stamp for +the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your +active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your own +good work. You know how to put your hands to the plough in +earnest as well as any men in existence, for this little book +informs me that you raised last year no less a sum than +£8000, and while fully half of that sum consisted of new +donations to the building fund, I find that the regular revenue +of the charity has only suffered to the extent of +£30. After this, I most earnestly and sincerely say +that were we all authors together, I might boast, if in my +profession were exhibited the same unity and steadfastness I find +in yours.</p> +<p>I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or +the vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond +of brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are +united in a common pursuit. You have already recognized +those claims so nobly, that I will not presume to lay them before +you in any further detail. Suffice it to say that I do not +think it is in your nature to do things by halves. I do not +think you could do so if you tried, and I have a moral certainty +that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are +not members of the travellers’ body, I will say in the +words of the French proverb, “Heaven helps those who help +themselves.” The Commercial Travellers having helped +themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the visitors who come +as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring that aid in +their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from +them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, +“Success to the Commercial Travellers’ +School.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>In proposing the health of the Army in the Crimea, Mr. Dickens +said:—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> does not require any +extraordinary sagacity in a commercial assembly to appreciate the +dire evils of war. The great interests of trade enfeebled +by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all the +peaceful arts bent down before it, too palpably indicate its +character and results, so that far less practical intelligence +than that by which I am surrounded would be sufficient to +appreciate the horrors of war. But there are seasons when +the evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, are immeasurably +greater, and when a powerful nation, by admitting the right of +any autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds of +its own ruin, and overshadows itself in time to come with that +fatal influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to +exercise over their weaker neighbours.</p> +<p>Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not +its root in English ground from which the yard wand can be made +that will measure—the mine has not its place in English +soil that will supply the material of a pair of scales to weigh +the influence that may be at stake in the war in which we are now +straining all our energies. That war is, at any time and in +any shape, a most dreadful and deplorable calamity, we need no +proverb to tell us; but it is just because it is such a calamity, +and because that calamity must not for ever be impending over us +at the fancy of one man against all mankind, that we must not +allow that man to darken from our view the figures of peace and +justice between whom and us he now interposes.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true +spirits of two countries were really fighting in the cause of +human advancement and freedom—no matter what diplomatic +notes or other nameless botherations, from number one to one +hundred thousand and one, may have preceded their taking the +field—if ever there were a time when noble hearts were +deserving well of mankind by exposing themselves to the obedient +bayonets of a rash and barbarian tyrant, it is now, when the +faithful children of England and France are fighting so bravely +in the Crimea. Those faithful children are the admiration +and wonder of the world, so gallantly are they discharging their +duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly, emphatically +representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink the health +of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all possible +honours.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>In proposing the health of the Treasurer, Mr. Dickens +said:—</p> +<p>If the President of this Institution had been here, I should +possibly have made one of the best speeches you ever heard; but +as he is not here, I shall turn to the next toast on my +list:—“The health of your worthy Treasurer, Mr. +George Moore,” a name which is a synonym for integrity, +enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence. He is one of +the most zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears to me +to have been doing nothing during the last week but rushing into +and out of railway-carriages, and making eloquent speeches at all +sorts of public dinners in favour of this charity. Last +evening he was at Manchester, and this evening he comes here, +sacrificing his time and convenience, and exhausting in the +meantime the contents of two vast leaden inkstands and no end of +pens, with the energy of fifty bankers’ clerks rolled into +one. But I clearly foresee that the Treasurer will have so +much to do to-night, such gratifying sums to acknowledge and such +large lines of figures to write in his books, that I feel the +greatest consideration I can show him is to propose his health +without further observation, leaving him to address you in his +own behalf. I propose to you, therefore, the health of Mr. +George Moore, the Treasurer of this charity, and I need hardly +add that it is one which is to be drunk with all the honours.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens rose and said:—]</p> +<p>So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both +in fact and in fiction, that I have heard recently of a proposal +for the establishment of a Company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to +take it down. Only one of those travellers, however, has +been enabled to bring Mont Blanc to Piccadilly, and, by his own +ability and good humour, so to thaw its eternal ice and snow, as +that the most timid lady may ascend it twice a-day, “during +the holidays,” without the smallest danger or +fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us +to-night, is undoubtedly “a traveller.” I do +not know whether he takes many orders, but this I can testify, on +behalf of the children of his friends, that he gives them in the +most liberal manner.</p> +<p>We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is +also a traveller, not only in right of his able edition of +Goldsmith’s “Traveller,” but in right of his +admirable Handbook, which proves him to be a traveller in the +right spirit through all the labyrinths of London. We have +also amongst us my friend Horace Mayhew, very well known also for +his books, but especially for his genuine admiration of the +company at that end of the room [<i>Mr. Dickens here pointed to +the ladies gallery</i>], and who, whenever the fair sex is +mentioned, will be found to have the liveliest personal interest +in the conversation.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health +of these three distinguished visitors. They are all +admirable speakers, but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed to me, +that on fairly balancing his own merits as a speaker and a +singer, he rather thinks he excels in the latter art. I +have, therefore, yielded to his estimate of himself, and I have +now the pleasure of informing you that he will lead off the +speeches of the other two gentlemen with a song. Mr. Albert +Smith has just said to me in an earnest tone of voice, +“What song would you recommend?” and I replied, +“Galignani’s Messenger.” Ladies and +gentlemen, I therefore beg to propose the health of Messrs. +Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and Horace Mayhew, and call on +the first-named gentleman for a song.</p> +<h2><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>XV.<br /> +ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, +WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1855.</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">cannot</span>, I am sure, better express +my sense of the kind reception accorded to me by this great +assembly, than by promising to compress what I shall address to +it within the closest possible limits. It is more than +eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who +“thought they should be heard for their much +speaking.” As they have propagated exceedingly since +that time, and as I observe that they flourish just now to a +surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my best to avoid +adding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble lord +at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament +about a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for +having stated in this place what the whole country knows +perfectly well to be true, and what no man in it can by +possibility better know to be true than those disinterested +supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing +him and cheering him night after night, when he first became +premier—I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, +at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and +distress—I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much +that the man of this age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous +spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not +blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come between the +wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to +the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. Now, I have +some slight acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, +and I will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not +say that if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty’s +servants, I think I should know where to put my hand on +“the comic old gentleman;” nor, that if I wanted to +get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to +go to for the tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable +host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that +contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these and +on other boards, in which the principal objects thrown about are +loaves and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord +the reason for these private theatricals, and the reason why, +however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon +them, there is not the faintest present hope of their coming to a +conclusion. It is this:—The public theatricals which +the noble lord is so condescending as to manage are so +intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts so +ill-distributed, the company so full of “walking +gentlemen,” the managers have such large families, and are +so bent upon putting those families into what is theatrically +called “first business”—not because of their +aptitude for it, but because they <i>are</i> their families, that +we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. We +have seen the <i>Comedy of Errors</i> played so dismally like a +tragedy that we really cannot bear it. We are, therefore, +making bold to get up the <i>School of Reform</i>, and we hope, +before the play is out, to improve that noble lord by our +performance very considerably. If he object that we have no +right to improve him without his license, we venture to claim +that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very +powerful piper, whom we always pay.</p> +<p>Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever +attended, and as my trade and calling is not associated with +politics, perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I came to +be here, because reasons similar to those which have influenced +me may still be trembling in the balance in the minds of +others. I want at all times, in full sincerity, to do my +duty by my countrymen. If <i>I</i> feel an attachment +towards them, there is nothing disinterested or meritorious in +that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence +and friendship that they have long reposed in me. My sphere +of action—which I shall never change—I shall never +overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do +to-night. By literature I have lived, and through +literature I have been content to serve my country; and I am +perfectly well aware that I cannot serve two masters. In my +sphere of action I have tried to understand the heavier social +grievances, and to help to set them right. When the +<i>Times</i> newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in +reference to the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of +misplaced men and misdirected things, which had made England +unable to find on the face of the earth, an enemy one-twentieth +part so potent to effect the misery and ruin of her noble +defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy +silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect +in which a great people had been exhibited for many years. +With shame and indignation lowering among all classes of society, +and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of +ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us—with +little adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent +understanding of the general mind, in Parliament—with the +machinery of Government and the legislature going round and +round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if +they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, +when it had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to +them—I did and do believe that the only wholesome turn +affairs so menacing could possibly take, was, the awaking of the +people, the outspeaking of the people, the uniting of the people +in all patriotism and loyalty to effect a great peaceful +constitutional change in the administration of their own +affairs. At such a crisis this association arose; at such a +crisis I joined it: considering its further case to be—if +further case could possibly be needed—that what is +everybody’s business is nobody’s business, that men +must be gregarious in good citizenship as well as in other +things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a +centre of attraction for particles to fly to, before any +serviceable body with recognised functions can come into +existence. This association has arisen, and we belong to +it. What are the objections to it? I have heard in +the main but three, which I will now briefly notice. It is +said that it is proposed by this association to exercise an +influence, through the constituencies, on the House of +Commons. I have not the least hesitation in saying that I +have the smallest amount of faith in the House of Commons at +present existing and that I consider the exercise of such +influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this +country. I was reading no later than yesterday the book of +Mr. Pepys, which is rather a favourite of mine, in which he, two +hundred years ago, writing of the House of Commons, says:</p> +<blockquote><p>“My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is +matter of the greatest grief to him in the world that he should +be put upon this trust of being a Parliament man; because he says +nothing is done, that he can see, out of any truth and sincerity, +but mere envy and design.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and +many years after a Reform Bill, the house of Commons is so little +changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it +happens that bills which cramp and worry the people, and restrict +their scant enjoyments, are so easily passed, and how it happens +that measures for their real interests are so very difficult to +be got through Parliament. I will not analyse the confined +air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases its +deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable Member who +was once a candidate for the honour of your—and +my—independent vote and interest. I will not ask what +is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments, standing on +the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask +how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the +removes and definitions of Shakespeare’s +Touchstone—the retort courteous—the quip +modest—the reply churlish—the reproof +valiant—the countercheck quarrelsome—the lie +circumstantial and the lie direct—are of immeasurably +greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the +taxation, and the education, of a whole people. I will not +penetrate into the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the +Bluebeard of Party keeps his strangled public questions, and with +regard to which, when he gives the key to his wife, the new +comer, he strictly charges her on no account to open the +door. I will merely put it to the experience of everybody +here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little +hard of hearing, a little dim of sight, a little slow of +understanding, and whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiency +invalided state to require close watching, and the occasional +application of sharp stimulants; and whether it is not capable of +considerable improvement? I believe that, in order to +preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, the +people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must +have its memory jogged; and be kept awake when it happens to have +taken too much Ministerial narcotic; it must be trotted about, +and must be bustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the +usage in such cases. I hold that no power can deprive us of +the right to administer our functions as a body comprising +electors from all parts of the country, associated together +because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, +unmeaning routine, or worn-out conventionalities.</p> +<p>This brings me to objection number two. It is stated +that this Association sets class against class. Is this +so? (<i>Cries of</i> “No.”) No, it finds +class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I +wish to avoid placing in opposition those two +words—Aristocracy and People. I am one who can +believe in the virtues and uses of both, and would not on any +account deprive either of a single just right belonging to +it. I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the +governors and the governed. These two bodies the +Association finds with a gulf between them, in which are lying, +newly-buried, thousands on thousands of the bravest and most +devoted men that even England ever bred. It is to prevent +the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, +that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary +consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now +so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help +to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common +justice and supported by common sense. Setting class +against class! That is the very parrot prattle that we have +so long heard. Try its justice by the following +example:—A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, +and a great number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, +when he asked them to give his children bread, gave them stones; +who, when they were told to give those children fish, gave them +serpents. When they were ordered to send to the East, they +sent to the West; when they ought to have been serving dinner in +the North, they were consulting exploded cookery books in the +South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when +required to do anything, and were bringing everything to +ruin. At last the respectable gentleman calls his house +steward, and says, even then more in sorrow than in anger, +“This is a terrible business; no fortune can stand +it—no mortal equanimity can bear it! I must change my +system; I must obtain servants who will do their +duty.” The house steward throws up his eyes in pious +horror, ejaculates “Good God, master, you are setting class +against class!” and then rushes off into the +servants’ hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on +that wicked feeling.</p> +<p>I now come to the third objection, which is common among young +gentlemen who are not particularly fit for anything but spending +money which they have not got. It is usually comprised in +the observation, “How very extraordinary it is that these +Administrative Reform fellows can’t mind their own +business.” I think it will occur to all that a very +sufficient mode of disposing of this objection is to say, that it +is our own business we mind when we come forward in this way, and +it is to prevent it from being mismanaged by them. I +observe from the Parliamentary debates—which have of late, +by-the-bye, frequently suggested to me that there is this +difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh, that, +whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the scarlet, in +the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull—I have +observed from the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious +fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and +the counter-check quarrelsome, in reference to every case, +showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever +produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should +have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, +which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be +contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if +the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient +general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think +they never can be, and they never will be. There is, +however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has so +pointed a moral at the end of it that I will substitute it for a +new case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath +of St. Stephen’s. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping +accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of +Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe +kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of +considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, +and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor’s Assistant, and well +versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of +accountants, book-keepers, and actuaries, were born, and +died. Still official routine inclined to these notched +sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still +the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of +elm wood called “tallies.” In the reign of +George III. an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, +whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in +existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought +to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be +effected.</p> +<p>All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare +mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till +1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found +that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the +question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, +worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a +vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, on +this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, +and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that +nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for +fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that +neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and +official routine required that they never should be, and so the +order went forth that they were to be privately and +confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt +in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged +with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the +panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set +fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to +ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in +the second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not +nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, +hasn’t got home to-night.</p> +<p>Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all +obstinate adherence to rubbish which the time has long outlived, +is certain to have in the soul of it more or less that is +pernicious and destructive; and that will some day set fire to +something or other; which, if given boldly to the winds would +have been harmless; but which, obstinately retained, is +ruinous. I believe myself that when Administrative Reform +goes up it will be idle to hope to put it down, on this or that +particular instance. The great, broad, and true cause that +our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that +we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in +matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, +I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and +stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the +country for merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be +aristocratic or democratic, only asking whether it be honest or +true, is, I take it, the true object of this Association. +This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large numbers +of the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they +may better comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves, and +impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of which +there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the +skirmishers thrown out from time to time by the Party of +Generals, they may see that their feints and manœuvres do +not oppress the small defaulters and release the great, and that +they do not gull the public with a mere field-day Review of +Reform, instead of an earnest, hard-fought Battle. I have +had no consultation with any one upon the subject, but I +particularly wish that the directors may devise some means of +enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier +terms than subscribers who have larger resources. I could +wish to see great numbers of them belong to us, because I +sincerely believe that it would be good for the common weal.</p> +<p>Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. +Layard asked him for a day for his motion, “Let the hon. +gentleman find a day for himself.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Now, in the names of all the gods at +once,<br /> +Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed<br /> +That he is grown so great?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If our Cæsar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of +reversing that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, +“First Lord, your duty it is to see that no man is left to +find a day for himself. See you, who take the +responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, +intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail +when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day +for himself. In this old country, with its seething +hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, +its crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the day when +the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head +of the Government failed in his duty in not anticipating it by a +brighter and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord; +make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, Lord +Palmerston, and History in return may then—not +otherwise—find a day for you; a day equally associated with +the contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted English +people, and with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her +fair line of children.”</p> +<h2><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>XVI.<br /> +SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read +his Christmas Carol in the Mechanics’ Hall in behalf of the +funds of the Institute.</p> +<p class="gutsumm">After the reading the Mayor said, he had been +charged by a few gentlemen in Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens +for his acceptance a very handsome service of table cutlery, a +pair of razors, and a pair of fish carvers, as some substantial +manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens for his kindness +in coming to Sheffield. Henceforth the Christmas of 1855 +would be associated in his mind with the name of that +gentleman.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Charles Dickens</span>, in receiving +the presentation, said, he accepted with heartfelt delight and +cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of +Sheffield-workmanship; and he begged to assure them that the kind +observations which had been made by the Mayor, and the way in +which they had been responded to by that assembly, would never be +obliterated from his remembrance. The present testified not +only to the work of Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and +generosity of Sheffield hearts. It was his earnest desire +to do right by his readers, and to leave imaginative and popular +literature associated with the private homes and public rights of +the people of England. The case of cutlery with which he +had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom +in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be +faithful to his death to the principles which had earned for him +their approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he +wished them many merry Christmases, and many happy new years.</p> +<h2><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>XVII.<br /> +LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital +for Sick Children, on Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one +hundred and fifty gentlemen sat down to dinner, in the +Freemasons’ Hall. Later in the evening all the seats +in the gallery were filled with ladies interested in the success +of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other toasts, +the Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed “Prosperity to the +Hospital for Sick Children,” and said:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—It is +one of my rules in life not to believe a man who may happen to +tell me that he feels no interest in children. I hold +myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because +I know, as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen +its affections and sympathies against those dear little people +must be wanting in so many humanising experiences of innocence +and tenderness, as to be quite an unsafe monstrosity among +men. Therefore I set the assertion down, whenever I happen +to meet with it—which is sometimes, though not +often—as an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel +languor of the hour, and meaning about as much as that knowing +social lassitude, which has used up the cardinal virtues and +quite found out things in general, usually does mean. I +suppose it may be taken for granted that we, who come together in +the name of children and for the sake of children, acknowledge +that we have an interest in them; indeed, I have observed since I +sit down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether, +representing an infant institution, and not even yet a grown-up +company. A few years are necessary to the increase of our +strength and the expansion of our figure; and then these tables, +which now have a few tucks in them, will be let out, and then +this hall, which now sits so easily upon us, will be too tight +and small for us. Nevertheless, it is likely that even we +are not without our experience now and then of spoilt +children. I do not mean of our own spoilt children, because +nobody’s own children ever were spoilt, but I mean the +disagreeable children of our particular friends. We know by +experience what it is to have them down after dinner, and, across +the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert to see, as in a +black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the +distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is +to assist at those little maternal anecdotes and table +entertainments illustrated with imitations and descriptive +dialogue which might not be inaptly called, after the manner of +my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome ascent of Miss Mary and +the eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what +it is when those children won’t go to bed; we know how they +prop their eyelids open with their forefingers when they will sit +up; how, when they become fractious, they say aloud that they +don’t like us, and our nose is too long, and why +don’t we go? And we are perfectly acquainted with +those kicking bundles which are carried off at last +protesting. An eminent eye-witness told me that he was one +of a company of learned pundits who assembled at the house of a +very distinguished philosopher of the last generation to hear him +expound his stringent views concerning infant education and early +mental development, and he told me that while the philosopher did +this in very beautiful and lucid language, the +philosopher’s little boy, for his part, edified the +assembled sages by dabbling up to the elbows in an apple pie +which had been provided for their entertainment, having +previously anointed his hair with the syrup, combed it with his +fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable that we +also have our similar experiences sometimes, of principles that +are not quite practice, and that we know people claiming to be +very wise and profound about nations of men who show themselves +to be rather weak and shallow about units of babies.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to +present to you after this dinner of to-day are not of this +class. I have glanced at these for the easier and lighter +introduction of another, a very different, a far more numerous, +and a far more serious class. The spoilt children whom I +must show you are the spoilt children of the poor in this great +city, the children who are, every year, for ever and ever +irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of ours by tens of +thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you, +assisting and not contravening the ways of Providence, will help +to save them. The two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, +who bring these children before you, preside over their births, +rock their wretched cradles, nail down their little coffins, pile +up the earth above their graves. Of the annual deaths in +this great town, their unnatural deaths form more than +one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as +to the other class—I shall not ask you on behalf of these +children to observe how good they are, how pretty they are, how +clever they are, how promising they are, whose beauty they most +resemble—I shall only ask you to observe how weak they are, +and how like death they are! And I shall ask you, by the +remembrance of everything that lies between your own infancy and +that so miscalled second childhood when the child’s graces +are gone and nothing but its helplessness remains; I shall ask +you to turn your thoughts to <i>these</i> spoilt children in the +sacred names of Pity and Compassion.</p> +<p>Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most +humane members of the humane medical profession, on a morning +tour among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town +of Edinburgh. In the closes and wynds of that picturesque +place—I am sorry to remind you what fast friends +picturesqueness and typhus often are—we saw more poverty +and sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a +life. Our way lay from one to another of the most wretched +dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out from the sky, +shut out from the air, mere pits and dens. In a room in one +of these places, where there was an empty porridge-pot on the +cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged children +crouching on the bare ground near it—where, I remember as I +speak, that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained +and time-stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the fever +which had shaken everything else there had shaken even +it—there lay, in an old egg-box which the mother had begged +from a shop, a little feeble, wasted, wan, sick child. With +his little wasted face, and his little hot, worn hands folded +over his breast, and his little bright, attentive eyes, I can see +him now, as I have seen him for several years, look in steadily +at us. There he lay in his little frail box, which was not +at all a bad emblem of the little body from which he was slowly +parting—there he lay, quite quiet, quite patient, saying +never a word. He seldom cried, the mother said; he seldom +complained; “he lay there, seemin’ to woonder what it +was a’ aboot.” God knows, I thought, as I stood +looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering—reasons +for wondering how it could possibly come to be that he lay there, +left alone, feeble and full of pain, when he ought to have been +as bright and as brisk as the birds that never got near +him—reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a +little decrepid old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, +as if there were no crowds of healthy and happy children playing +on the grass under the summer’s sun within a stone’s +throw of him, as if there were no bright, moving sea on the other +side of the great hill overhanging the city; as if there were no +great clouds rushing over it; as if there were no life, and +movement, and vigour anywhere in the world—nothing but +stoppage and decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in +his silence, more pathetically than I have ever heard anything +said by any orator in my life, “Will you please to tell me +what this means, strange man? and if you can give me any good +reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced on my way to Him +who said that children were to come into His presence and were +not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that they +should come by this hard road by which I am travelling; pray give +that reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly and wonder about +it very much;” and to my mind he has been wondering about +it ever since. Many a poor child, sick and neglected, I +have seen since that time in this London; many a poor sick child +I have seen most affectionately and kindly tended by poor people, +in an unwholesome house and under untoward circumstances, wherein +its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such times I have +seen my poor little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he has +always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always found +him wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious +God, such things should be!</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will +not be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the +great compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of +rescue and prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a +quarter of a mile of this place where I speak, stands a courtly +old house, where once, no doubt, blooming children were born, and +grew up to be men and women, and married, and brought their own +blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which +stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on +the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old +state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now +converted are such little patients that the attendant nurses look +like reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like +an amiable Christian ogre. Grouped about the little low +tables in the centre of the rooms are such tiny convalescents +that they seem to be playing at having been ill. On the +doll’s beds are such diminutive creatures that each poor +sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round, +you may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled over +half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one +little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw myself) the whole tin +soldiery of Europe. On the walls of these rooms are +graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. At the +bed’s heads, are pictures of the figure which is the +universal embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figure of +Him who was once a child himself, and a poor one. Besides +these little creatures on the beds, you may learn in that place +that the number of small Out-patients brought to that house for +relief is no fewer than ten thousand in the compass of one single +year. In the room in which these are received, you may see +against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it has been +calculated, that if every grateful mother who brings a child +there will drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly +be increased in a year by so large a sum as forty pounds. +And you may read in the Hospital Report, with a glow of pleasure, +that these poor women are so respondent as to have made, even in +a toiling year of difficulty and high prices, this estimated +forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same +Hospital, you may read with what a generous earnestness the +highest and wisest members of the medical profession testify to +the great need of it; to the immense difficulty of treating +children in the same hospitals with grown-up people, by reason of +their different ailments and requirements, to the vast amount of +pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will be saved, +through this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but +among the prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of +children’s illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a +more systematic mode of studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, +and I am sorry to say, worst of all—(for I must present no +rose-coloured picture of this place to you—I must not +deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s +Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find himself +perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will +learn, with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, so +forlornly, so miserably diminutive, compared with this vast +London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be +made better known; I limit myself to saying better known, because +I will not believe that in a Christian community of fathers and +mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better +known, to be well and richly endowed.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of +adornment—which I resolved when I got up not to allow +myself—this is the simple case. This is the pathetic +case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf of the +thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but +also on behalf of the thousands of children who live half +developed, racked with preventible pain, shorn of their natural +capacity for health and enjoyment. If these innocent +creatures cannot move you for themselves, how can I possibly hope +to move you in their name? The most delightful paper, the +most charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles Lamb +conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter +night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in +their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, +bachelor self, and finds that they were but dream-children who +might have been, but never were. “We are +nothing,” they say to him; “less than nothing, and +dreams. We are only what might have been, and we must wait +upon the tedious shore of Lethe, millions of ages, before we have +existence and a name.” “And immediately +awaking,” he says, “I found myself in my arm +chair.” The dream-children whom I would now raise, if +I could, before every one of you, according to your various +circumstances, should be the dear child you love, the dearer +child you have lost, the child you might have had, the child you +certainly have been. Each of these dream-children should +hold in its powerful hand one of the little children now lying in +the Child’s Hospital, or now shut out of it to +perish. Each of these dream-children should say to you, +“O, help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for +my sake!” Well!—And immediately awaking, you +should find yourselves in the Freemasons’ Hall, happily +arrived at the end of a rather long speech, drinking +“Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children,” and +thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.</p> +<h2><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>XVIII.<br /> +EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading +of his Christmas Carol in the Music Hall, before the members and +subscribers of the Philosophical Institution. At the +conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of Edinburgh presented +him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickens +acknowledged the tribute as follows:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My Lord Provost</span>, ladies, and +gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am deeply sensible of your kind +welcome, and of this beautiful and great surprise; and that I +thank you cordially with all my heart. I never have +forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour to be a +burgess and guild-brother of the Corporation of Edinburgh. +As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the first great public +recognition and encouragement I ever received was bestowed on me +in this generous and magnificent city—in this city so +distinguished in literature and so distinguished in the +arts. You will readily believe that I have carried into the +various countries I have since traversed, and through all my +subsequent career, the proud and affectionate remembrance of that +eventful epoch in my life; and that coming back to Edinburgh is +to me like coming home.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice +to-night, that I will not inflict on you the additional task of +hearing any more. I am better reconciled to limiting myself +to these very few words, because I know and feel full well that +no amount of speech to which I could give utterance could +possibly express my sense of the honour and distinction you have +conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification I derive from +this reception.</p> +<h2><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>XIX.<br /> +LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the +General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, at +which Thackeray presided, Mr. Dickens made the following +speech:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> our theatrical experience as +playgoers we are all equally accustomed to predict by certain +little signs and portents on the stage what is going to happen +there. When the young lady, an admiral’s daughter, is +left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smart +spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath her +feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When two +gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, +and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it +will assume a retrospective biographical character. When +any of the performers who belong to the sea-faring or marauding +professions are observed to arm themselves with very small swords +to which are attached very large hilts, we predict that the +affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the association +of ideas, it may have occurred to some that when I asked my old +friend in the chair to allow me to propose a toast I had him in +my eye; and I have him now on my lips.</p> +<p>The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office +which I hold, are not so frequent or so great as its +privileges. He is in fact a mere walking gentleman, with +the melancholy difference that he has no one to love. If +this advantage could be added to his character it would be one of +a more agreeable nature than it is, and his forlorn position +would be greatly improved. His duty is to call every half +year at the bankers’, when he signs his name in a large +greasy inconvenient book, to certain documents of which he knows +nothing, and then he delivers it to the property man and exits +anywhere.</p> +<p>He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his +privileges to watch the steady growth of an institution in which +he takes great interest; it is one of his privileges to bear his +testimony to the prudence, the goodness, the self-denial, and the +excellence of a class of persons who have been too long +depreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied, out of the +depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And lastly, +it is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose +the health of the chairman at the annual dinners of the +institution, when that chairman is one for whose genius he +entertains the warmest admiration, and whom he respects as a +friend, and as one who does honour to literature, and in whom +literature is honoured. I say when that is the case, he +feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. +From the earliest days of this institution I have ventured to +impress on its managers, that they would consult its credit and +success by choosing its chairmen as often as possible within the +circle of literature and the arts; and I will venture to say that +no similar institution has been presided over by so many +remarkable and distinguished men. I am sure, however, that +it never has had, and that it never will have, simply because it +cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by the presence +of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night.</p> +<p>It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on +myself to flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. +Thackeray’s books, and to tell you to observe how full they +are of wit and wisdom, how out-speaking, and how devoid of fear +or favour; but I will take leave to remark, in paying my due +homage and respect to them, that it is fitting that such a writer +and such an institution should be brought together. Every +writer of fiction, although he may not adopt the dramatic form, +writes in effect for the stage. He may never write plays; +but the truth and passion which are in him must be more or less +reflected in the great mirror which he holds up to nature. +Actors, managers, and authors are all represented in this +company, and it maybe supposed that they all have studied the +deep wants of the human heart in many theatres; but none of them +could have studied its mysterious workings in any theatre to +greater advantage than in the bright and airy pages of <i>Vanity +Fair</i>. To this skilful showman, who has so often +delighted us, and who has charmed us again to-night, we have now +to wish God speed, and that he may continue for many years <a +name="citation150"></a><a href="#footnote150" +class="citation">[150]</a> to exercise his potent art. To +him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter, God bless him!</p> +<h2><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>XX.<br /> +LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The reader will already have observed that in +the Christmas week of 1853, and on several subsequent occasions, +Mr. Dickens had read the <i>Christmas Carol</i> and the +<i>Chimes</i> before public audiences, but always in aid of the +funds of some institution, or for other benevolent +purposes. The first reading he ever gave for his own +benefit took place on the above date, in St. Martin’s Hall, +(now converted into the Queen’s Theatre). This +reading Mr. Dickens prefaced with the following +speech:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—It may +perhaps be in known to you that, for a few years past, I have +been accustomed occasionally to read some of my shorter books, to +various audiences, in aid of a variety of good objects, and at +some charge to myself, both in time and money. It having at +length become impossible in any reason to comply with these +always accumulating demands, I have had definitively to choose +between now and then reading on my own account, as one of my +recognised occupations, or not reading at all. I have had +little or no difficulty in deciding on the former course. +The reasons that have led me to it—besides the +consideration that it necessitates no departure whatever from the +chosen pursuits of my life—are threefold: firstly, I have +satisfied myself that it can involve no possible compromise of +the credit and independence of literature; secondly, I have long +held the opinion, and have long acted on the opinion, that in +these times whatever brings a public man and his public face to +face, on terms of mutual confidence and respect, is a good thing; +thirdly, I have had a pretty large experience of the interest my +hearers are so generous as to take in these occasions, and of the +delight they give to me, as a tried means of strengthening those +relations—I may almost say of personal +friendship—which it is my great privilege and pride, as it +is my great responsibility, to hold with a multitude of persons +who will never hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is +that I come, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time; +and thus it is that I proceed to read this little book, quite as +composedly as I might proceed to write it, or to publish it in +any other way.</p> +<h2><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>XXI.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 1, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following short speech was made at the +Banquet of the Royal Academy, after the health of Mr. Dickens and +Mr. Thackeray had been proposed by the President, Sir Charles +Eastlake:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Following</span> the order of your toast, +I have to take the first part in the duet to be performed in +acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to +literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much an +interchange of compliments, as it were, between near relations, +to enter into any lengthened expression of our thanks for the +honour you have done us. I feel that it would be changing +this splendid assembly into a sort of family party. I may, +however, take leave to say that your sister, whom I represent, is +strong and healthy; that she has a very great affection for, and +an undying interest in you, and that it is always a very great +gratification to her to see herself so well remembered within +these walls, and to know that she is an honoured guest at your +hospitable board.</p> +<h2><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>XXII.<br /> +LONDON, JULY 21, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date, a public meeting was held +at the Princess’s Theatre, for the purpose of establishing +the now famous Royal Dramatic College. Mr. Charles Kean was +the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered the following +speech:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—I think +I may venture to congratulate you beforehand on the pleasant +circumstance that the movers and seconders of the resolutions +which will be submitted to you will, probably, have very little +to say. Through the Report which you have heard read, and +through the comprehensive address of the chairman, the cause +which brings us together has been so very clearly stated to you, +that it can stand in need of very little, if of any further +exposition. But, as I have the honour to move the first +resolution which this handsome gift, and the vigorous action that +must be taken upon it, necessitate, I think I shall only give +expression to what is uppermost in the general mind here, if I +venture to remark that, many as the parts are in which Mr. Kean +has distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared +in one in which the large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a +man, and the grace of a gentleman, have been more admirably +blended than in this day’s faithful adherence to the +calling of which he is a prosperous ornament, and in this +day’s manly advocacy of its cause.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is:</p> +<p>“That the Report of the provisional committee be +adopted, and that this meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully +acknowledges, the gift of five acres of land referred to in the +said Report.” <a name="citation153"></a><a +href="#footnote153" class="citation">[153]</a></p> +<p>It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this +acceptance and acknowledgment, and that we all know very well +that this generous gift can inspire but one sentiment in the +breast of every lover of the dramatic art. As it is far too +often forgotten by those who are indebted to it for many a +restorative flight out of this working-day world, that the silks, +and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professors must be every +night exchanged for the hideous coats and waistcoats of the +present day, in which we have now the honour and the misfortune +of appearing before you, so when we do meet with a nature so +considerably generous as this donor’s, and do find an +interest in the real life and struggles of the people who have +delighted it, so very spontaneous and so very liberal, we have +nothing to do but to accept and to admire, we have no duty left +but to “take the goods the gods provide us,” and to +make the best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen, +allow me to remark, that in this mode of turning a good gift to +the highest account, lies the truest gratitude.</p> +<p>In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean +was speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, the spot +upon which we are now assembled will be transformed into the +scene of a crafty and a cruel bond. I know that, a few +hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice will flow, with +picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where I now stand dryshod, +and that “the quality of mercy” will be beautifully +stated to the Venetian Council by a learned young doctor from +Padua, on these very boards on which we now enlarge upon the +quality of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it came into +my mind to consider how different the real bond of to-day from +the ideal bond of to-night. Now, all generosity, all +forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousies and unworthy +divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, +all selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all +evil,—now all good. Then, a bond to be broken within +the compass of a few—three or four—swiftly passing +hours,—now, a bond to be valid and of good effect +generations hence.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this +bond, between this generous gentleman on the one hand, and the +united members of a too often and too long disunited art upon the +other, be you the witnesses. Do you attest of everything +that is liberal and free in spirit, that is “so nominated +in the bond;” and of everything that is grudging, +self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by no sophistry ever +to be found there. I beg to move the resolution which I +have already had the pleasure of reading.</p> +<h2><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>XXIII.<br /> +MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was delivered at the +annual meeting of the Institutional Association of Lancashire and +Cheshire, held in the Free-trade Hall on the evening of the above +day, at which Mr. Dickens presided.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has of late years become +noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense +amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the +leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price +begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and +north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the +bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this +year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some +supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest and the vintage, I do +not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of +the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, +each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little +or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always +addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the +audience to which it was delivered.</p> +<p>The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine +as to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this +enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as +we have something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, +in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. +We have no little straws of our own to throw up to show us which +way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to +make for anything outside this hall.</p> +<p>At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the +words, “Institutional Association of Lancashire and +Cheshire.” Will you allow me, in reference to the +meaning of those words, to present myself before you as the +embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put +myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results +of my studies. To begin with: the title did not suggest to +me anything in the least like the truth. I have been for +some years pretty familiar with the terms, +“Mechanics’ Institutions,” and “Literary +Societies,” but they have, unfortunately, become too often +associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, lame as +to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new +house much too large for it, which is seldom paid for, and which +takes the name of the mechanics most grievously in vain, for I +have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place +together.</p> +<p>I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of +this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, +“Here’s the old story.” But the perusal +of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it +was not by any means the old story; in short, that this +association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and +to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt +that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central +head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics’ +Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of +no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to all +how they can best communicate with and profit by the +fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily +before them; advising them how those aims can be best attained; +giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise easily +become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral +teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called +“Free Itinerating Libraries.” I learned that +these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon +hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with +inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling +people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude +hand. These and other like facts lead me to consider the +immense importance of the fact, that no little cluster of working +men’s cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire +valley, at the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts +out for water-power, but it has its educational friend and +companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its +thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come +into existence.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that +has brought me here. No central association at a distance +could possibly do for those working men what this local +association does. No central association at a distance +could possibly understand them as this local association +does. No central association at a distance could possibly +put them in that familiar and easy communication one with +another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that +valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for +knowledge, in that valley twelve miles off, and should +occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your +learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine +in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a +most important feature, of this society.</p> +<p>On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest +men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing +and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is +obvious that combination must materially diminish their cost, +which is in time a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious +that experience, essential to the success of all combination, is +especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of +experience and of reflection.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present +profitable history of this society does not stop here in his +learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and +pleasure that the parent society at certain stated periods +invites the more eager and enterprising members of the local +society to submit themselves to voluntary examination in various +branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the +charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful +candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and +certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most +successful of the competitors in the list of these examinations +are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and +encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving them, +as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose.</p> +<p>I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which +have comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, +book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social +economy, the French language—in fact, they comprise all the +keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most +devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that they had not been +submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they +had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself +to-night. And yet it is always to be observed and seriously +remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose +lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose +whole existence, has been a constant wrestle with</p> +<blockquote><p>“Those twin gaolers of the daring +heart—<br /> +Low birth and iron fortune.” <a name="citation161"></a><a +href="#footnote161" class="citation">[161]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that +these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the +business of whose life is with writing and with books, but by +men, the business of whose life is with tools and with +machinery.</p> +<p>Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve +me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and +certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three +of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor +brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a +coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles +a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which they +have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from +Bollington, who begin life as piecers at one shilling or +eighteen-pence a-week, and the father of one of whom was cut to +pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had +himself founded the institution in which this son has since come +to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you +to-night, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. +There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a +third-class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; +he is this year again successful in a competition three times as +severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who +knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and +who has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local +institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble +circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles +a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which he +has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron +foundry, who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the +furnace, got up at four o’clock in the morning to learn +drawing. “The thought of my lads,” he writes in +his modest account of himself, “in their peaceful slumbers +above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I +should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them +when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines +and engines which have made our country, England, pre-eminent in +the world’s history.” There is a piecer at +mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of +little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged +mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which +he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the +resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and +who has kept to it with such an astonishing will, that he is now +well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar +in Stockport. The drawing-classes in that same Stockport +are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that +working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of +to-night. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as +it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,<br /> + Onward through life he goes;<br /> +Each morning sees some task begun,<br /> + Each evening sees its clause.<br /> +Something attempted, something done,<br /> + Has earn’d a night’s repose.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from +local societies now before me, and to content myself with one +instance from amongst them. There is among their number a +most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings that +I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least +of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere +baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue: who +began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings +a-week: who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production +of the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and +preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed +the birds: who is now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in +some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and +has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh water and of +the sea: who is worthily the president of his own local Literary +Institution, and who was at his work this time last night as +foreman in a mill.</p> +<p>So stimulating has been the influence of these bright +examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications +from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from +an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing +himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, +describes his occupation as “nursing a little +child.” Nor are these things confined to the +men. The women employed in factories, milliners’ +work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting +they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by +the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so +honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their +examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of +household management and household economy, that if I were a +working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, and if I had not cast +my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should +positively get up at four o’clock in the morning with the +determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to +Preston in search of a wife.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, +daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony +to the working of this Association, than any number of speakers +could possibly present to you. Surely the presence among us +of these indefatigable people is the Association’s best and +most effective triumph in the present and the past, and is its +noblest stimulus to effort in the future. As its temporary +mouth-piece, I would beg to say to that portion of the company +who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can never +hold itself apart from them;—can never set itself above +them; that their distinction and success must be its distinction +and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between +them and it. In particular, I would most especially entreat +them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this +Association’s mind than the impertinence of +patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates +that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so +many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the +spirit in which they are given, and in which they are +received. The prizes are money prizes, simply because the +Institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so +well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money +serviceable—because it would be a shame to treat them like +grown-up babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows +it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of +purpose, perfect trustfulness, and, above all, perfect +independence.</p> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole +collective audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, +release the hold which your favour has given me on your +attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I have said, and +I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man +who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in +usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, +nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the county of +Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were +superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain +from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor +clay image of a parrot, which was once always saying, without +knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge was a dangerous +thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the +mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from +an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have +been—as my friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has +it—“blasted into space;” and there, as to this +world, is an end of them.</p> +<p>So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. +In the first place, let me congratulate you upon the progress +which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time +in your neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual +employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight +to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great +railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves in +this matter with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all +praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my +own personal heart, which is always very near to it in this +connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible +objects of nature, whose workings we can tell of in figures, +surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of +an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a +slate or demonstrated by a microscope—do not let us, in the +laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy +and the imagination which equally surround us as a part of the +great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or +woman into which it changes, always remember those fables +tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be +weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, +continue to have their places about us, be we never so +wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softest +heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a +blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to +mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate +as He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could +still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. +As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to +help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, +untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have +exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that He set us the +example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and +that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our +race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all +followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed, when +it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and the +heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the +soul, and dominates the universe.</p> +<h2><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>XXIV.<br /> +COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above evening, a public dinner was +held at the Castle Hotel, on the occasion of the presentation to +Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold watch, as a mark of gratitude for +the reading of his Christmas Carol, given in December of the +previous year, in aid of the funds of the Coventry +Institute. The chair was taken by C. W. Hoskyns, Esq. +Mr. Dickens ackowledged the testimonial in the following +words:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Chairman</span>, Mr. Vice-chairman, +and Gentlemen,—I hope your minds will be greatly relieved +by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never +to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under +any circumstances, it would be least of all under such +circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of +your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give +me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly +with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest, and so +true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion +with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and good +taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament +would be almost an impertinence.</p> +<p>Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and +how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch, with which you +have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary +working at home, and in my wanderings abroad. It shall +never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours +of my future days; and I can assure you that after this night the +object of those labours will not less than before be to uphold +the right and to do good. And when I have done with time +and its measurement, this watch shall belong to my children; and +as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their +country in various ways, or to elect into what distant regions +they shall roam, it is not only possible, but probable, that this +little voice will be heard scores of years hence, who knows? in +some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or +communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan.</p> +<p>Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of +hearts, I can assure you that the memory of to-night, and of your +picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my +mind, and I can never more hear the lightest mention of the name +of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of +unusual emotion and unusual attachment.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the +Chairman, Mr. Dickens said:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> may be a great variety of +conflicting opinions with regard to farming, and especially with +reference to the management of a clay farm; but, however various +opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be but +one opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer,—and it is +the health of that distinguished agriculturist which I have to +propose.</p> +<p>In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may +be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it +<i>is</i>, exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a +number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the +management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever +lying fallow. In the hope that this very rich and teeming +individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that, we shall gather +into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of wisdom, +which must spring up when ever he is sown, I take leave to +propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in +which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never +forget.</p> +<h2>XXV.<br /> +LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At a Dinner of the Artists’ General +Benevolent Institution, the following Address was delivered by +Mr. Charles Dickens from the chair:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Seven</span> or eight years ago, without +the smallest expectation of ever being called upon to fill the +chair at an anniversary festival of the Artists’ General +Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest reference to +such an occasion, I selected the administration of that Charity +as the model on which I desired that another should be reformed, +both as regarded the mode in which the relief was afforded, and +the singular economy with which its funds were +administered. As a proof of the latter quality during the +past year, the cost of distributing £1,126 among the +recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more +than £100, inclusive of all office charges and +expenses. The experience and knowledge of those entrusted +with the management of the funds are a guarantee that the last +available farthing of the funds will be distributed among proper +and deserving recipients. Claiming, on my part, to be +related in some degree to the profession of an artist, I disdain +to stoop to ask for charity, in the ordinary acceptation of the +term, on behalf of the Artists. In its broader and higher +signification of generous confidence, lasting trustfulness, love +and confiding belief, I very readily associate that cardinal +virtue with art. I decline to present the artist to the +notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as a strange, +unaccountable, moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly in the +street of life to be helped over the road by the +crossing-sweeper; on the contrary, I present the artist as a +reasonable creature, a sensible gentleman, and as one well +acquainted with the value of his time, and that of other people, +as if he were in the habit of going on high ’Change every +day. The Artist whom I wish to present to the notice of the +Meeting is one to whom the perfect enjoyment of the five senses +is essential to every achievement of his life. He can gain +no wealth nor fame by buying something which he never touched, +and selling it to another who would also never touch or see it, +but was compelled to strike out for himself every spark of fire +which lighted, burned, and perhaps consumed him. He must +win the battle of life with his own hand, and with his own eyes, +and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, +non-commissioned officer, private, drummer, great arms, small +arms, infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When, +therefore, I ask help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for +one who was a cripple from his birth, but I ask it as part +payment of a great debt which all sensible and civilised +creatures owe to art, as a mark of respect to art, as a +decoration—not as a badge—as a remembrance of what +this land, or any land, would be without art, and as the token of +an appreciation of the works of the most successful artists of +this country. With respect to the society of which I am the +advocate, I am gratified that it is so liberally supported by the +most distinguished artists, and that it has the confidence of men +who occupy the highest rank as artists, above the reach of +reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, and +whose support is above all price. Artists who have obtained +wide-world reputation know well that many deserving and +persevering men, or their widows and orphans, have received help +from this fund, and some of the artists who have received this +help are now enrolled among the subscribers to the +Institution.</p> +<h2><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>XXVI.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 20, 1862.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, +in his capacity as chairman, at the annual Festival of the +Newsvendors’ and Provident Institution, held at the +Freemasons’ Tavern on the above date.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I had the honour of being +asked to preside last year, I was prevented by indisposition, and +I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, to reign in my +stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellent +speech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speech +with considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong +misgiving that I had better have presided last year with +neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head, rather than +preside this year with my neuralgia all gone and my subject +anticipated. Therefore, I wish to preface the toast this +evening by making the managers of this Institution one very +solemn and repentant promise, and it is, if ever I find myself +obliged to provide a substitute again, they may rely upon my +sending the most speechless man of my acquaintance.</p> +<p>The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of +the universality of the newsman’s calling. Nothing, I +think, is left for me but to imagine the newsman’s burden +itself, to unfold one of those wonderful sheets which he every +day disseminates, and to take a bird’s-eye view of its +general character and contents. So, if you please, choosing +my own time—though the newsman cannot choose his time, for +he must be equally active in winter or summer, in sunshine or +sleet, in light or darkness, early or late—but, choosing my +own time, I shall for two or three moments start off with the +newsman on a fine May morning, and take a view of the wonderful +broadsheets which every day he scatters broadcast over the +country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me following +the newsman is, that every day we are born, that every day we are +married—some of us—and that every day we are dead; +consequently, the first thing the newsvendor’s column +informs me is, that Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been +married, and that Datkins is dead. But the most remarkable +thing I immediately discover in the next column, is that Atkins +has grown to be seventeen years old, and that he has run away; +for, at last, my eye lights on the fact that William A., who is +seventeen years old, is adjured immediately to return to his +disconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the +satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid he will never return, +simply because, if he had meant to come back, he would never have +gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character +in such a mysterious difficulty that it is only to be expressed +by several disjointed letters, by several figures, and several +stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation that the +writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that the +elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the +shoulder of my industrious friend, the newsman, I find there are +great fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, that they +all want a little more stowage, a little more cargo, that they +have a few more berths to let, that they have all the most +spacious decks, that they are all built of teak, and +copper-bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience, and +that they are all A1 at Lloyds’, and anywhere else. +Still glancing over the shoulder of my friend the newsman, I find +I am offered all kinds of house-lodging, clerks, servants, and +situations, which I can possibly or impossibly want. I +learn, to my intense gratification, that I need never grow old, +that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my complexion; +that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; that if I +have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or Turkish +baths, I am told where to get them, and that, if I want an income +of seven pounds a-week, I may have it by sending half-a-crown in +postage-stamps. Then I look to the police intelligence, and +I can discover that I may bite off a human living nose cheaply, +but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a calf from a +shop-window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find +that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of killing +an inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little +incident will not affect the testimonials to my character, but +that I shall be described as a most amiable young man, and as, +above all things, remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of +my character and disposition. Then I turn my eye to the +Fine Arts, and, under that head, I see that a certain “J. +O.” has most triumphantly exposed a certain “J. O. +B.,” which “J. O. B.” was remarkable for this +particular ugly feature, that I was requested to deprive myself +of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that time it +was to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for +my courtesy in having my picture most impertinently covered with +a wet blanket. To sum up the results of a glance over my +newsman’s shoulder, it gives a comprehensive knowledge of +what is going on over the continent of Europe, and also of what +is going on over the continent of America, to say nothing of such +little geographical regions as India and China.</p> +<p>Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s +shoulders from the whimsical point of view, which is the point, I +believe, that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be +met with on steamboats, railway stations, and at every +turn. His profits are small, he has a great amount of +anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wear and +tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and +he is looked for with pleasurable excitement every day, except +when he lends the paper for an hour, and when he is punctual in +calling for it, which is sometimes very painful. I think +the lesson we can learn from our newsman is some new illustration +of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of its vicissitudes +and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent lesson, some +members of the trade originated this society, which affords them +assistance in time of sickness and indigence. The +subscription is infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five +shillings. Looking at the returns before me, the progress +of the society would seem to be slow, but it has only been slow +for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The +pensions granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded +capital, and, therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as +the Bank. It is stated that there are several newsvendors +who are not members of this society; but that is true in all +institutions which have come under my experience. The +persons who are most likely to stand in need of the benefits +which an institution confers, are usually the persons to keep +away until bitter experience comes to them too late.</p> +<h2><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +176</span>XXVII.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 11, 1864.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the +Adelphi Theatre, at a public meeting, for the purpose of founding +the Shakespeare Schools, in connexion with the Royal Dramatic +College, and delivered the following address:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and +gentlemen</span>—Fortunately for me, and fortunately for +you, it is the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this +nature, to be very careful that he does not anticipate those +speakers who come after him. Like Falstaff, with a +considerable difference, he has to be the cause of speaking in +others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches with +exemplary attention than to stand up to make them; so I shall +confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your business +official, to as plain and as short an exposition as I can +possibly give you of the reasons why we come together.</p> +<p>First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come +together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing +to do with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble +worshippers of that mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by +to take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, +however, the Tercentenary celebration were a hundred years hence, +or a hundred years past, we should still be pursuing precisely +the same object, though we should not pursue it under precisely +the same circumstances. The facts are these: There is, as +you know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal +Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose +for veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this +college, which dates some five or six years back, expressly +provides for the establishment of schools in connexion with it; +and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme, when it +was explained to him, was specially interesting to his Royal +Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of +the desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look +back; to found educational institutions for the rising +generation, as well as to establish a harbour of refuge for the +generation going out, or at least having their faces turned +towards the setting sun. The leading members of the +dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing +necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction +of their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, +energy, good-will, and good faith that always honourably +distinguish them in their efforts to help one another. +Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the respected +gentleman <a name="citation177"></a><a href="#footnote177" +class="citation">[177]</a> under whose roof we are assembled, and +who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these +boards as I always am to see him here. With such energy and +determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and sisters in art +proceed with their work, that at this present time all the +dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, +completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of +them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, +the grounds are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate +has become the nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This +much achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in his mind how he +should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools, +when, this Tercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred to +him to represent to the National Shakespeare Committee their just +and reasonable claim to participate in the results of any +subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented +to the committee that the social recognition and elevation of the +followers of Shakespeare’s own art, through the education +of their children, was surely a monument worthy even of that +great name. He urged upon the committee that it was +certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good +sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim +the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to +understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if +the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those +schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited +public support.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in +fact, to find a new self-supporting public school; with this +additional feature, that it is to be available for both +sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct +schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging +to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no charge, +no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important +head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new +self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing +neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast accumulating +middle-class population, and where property in land is fast +rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project +of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to +be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their +schools the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the +followers of Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in +them. With this view, it is confidently believed that the +public will endow a foundation, say, for forty foundation +scholars—say, twenty girls and twenty boys—who shall +always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall always +be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. +This school, you will understand, is to be equal to the best +existing public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, +liberal, comprehensive education, and it is to address the whole +great middle class at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply +as any existing public school.</p> +<p>Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. +There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at +nearly all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of +a noble part of our standard national literature, and in +remembrance of a great humanising art, will do this thing for +these children, it will at the same time be doing a wise and good +thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in +it. Taking this view of the case—and I cannot be +satisfied to take any lower one—I cannot make a sorry face +about “the poor player.” I think it is a term +very much misused and very little understood—being, I +venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players +themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only +present the player to you exceptionally in this wise—that +he follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation very +rarely affording the means of accumulating money—that that +vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many +undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one—that +it is not a vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the +labours of others, but in which he must earn every loaf of his +bread in his own person, with the aid of his own face, his own +limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own life and +spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason +enough to render him some little help in opening for his children +their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, +because it is not often found, except under the pressure of +necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent—which +is always an exceptional case—that the children of actors +and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need not +in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they +would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do +directly the reverse, for they would divert into channels of +public distinction and usefulness those good qualities which +would otherwise languish in that market’s over-rich +superabundance.</p> +<p>This project has received the support of the head of the most +popular of our English public schools. On the committee +stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the +Provost of Eton. You justly admire this liberal spirit, and +your admiration—which I cordially share—brings me +naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is not in +England any institution so socially liberal as a public +school. It has been called a little cosmos of life outside, +and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life’s +worst foibles—for, as far as I know, nowhere in this +country is there so complete an absence of servility to mere +rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public +school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his +personal qualities make him. We may differ about the +curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, +independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I apprehend +there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these +later times that objection has been made to children of dramatic +artists in certain little snivelling private schools—but in +public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors are +wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious +liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little +hole-and-corner place of education for their children +exclusively, but in addressing the whole of the great middle +class, and proposing to them to come and join them, the actors, +on their own property, in a public school, in a part of the +country where no such advantage is now to be found.</p> +<p>I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid +one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, +or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it +down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of +timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but +merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of +the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he +distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with +which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall +lay a strong foundation of these schools to-day, I will call, as +the mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell.</p> +<h2><a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +182</span>XXVIII.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 9, 1865.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the +Annual Festival of the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and +Provident Association, and, in proposing the toast of the +evening, delivered the following speech.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—Dr. +Johnson’s experience of that club, the members of which +have travelled over one another’s minds in every direction, +is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual +president of a society like this. Having on previous +occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to +say, he is again produced, with the same awful formalities, to +say everything about it that he cannot possibly find to +say. It struck me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now +to Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred president +is very like that of the stag at Epping Forest on Easter +Monday. That unfortunate animal when he is uncarted at the +spot where the meet takes place, generally makes a point, I am +told, of making away at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by +the whole field, to the yard where he lives, and there subsides +into a quiet and inoffensive existence, until he is again brought +out to be again followed by exactly the same field, under exactly +the same circumstances, next Easter Monday.</p> +<p>The difficulties of the situation—and here I mean the +president and not the stag—are greatly increased in such an +instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. +In its unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe +me—for I have carefully considered the point—it +presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it +were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of +wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very +likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If +its funds were lavished in patronage and show, instead of being +honestly expended in providing small annuities for hard-working +people who have themselves contributed to its funds—if its +management were intrusted to people who could by no possibility +know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, +business, practical hands—if it hoarded when it ought to +spend—if it got by cringing and fawning what it never +deserved, I might possibly impress you very much by my +indignation. If its managers could tell me that it was +insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts +had been kept by Mr. Edmunds—or by +“Tom,”—if its treasurer had run away with the +money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your +feelings. But I have no such chance. Just as a nation +is happy whose records are barren, so is a society fortunate that +has no history—and its president unfortunate. I can +only assure you that this society continues its plain, +unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it +does a great deal of good at a very small cost, and that the +objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful +working servants of the public—sole ministers of their +wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at +their own doors, at the street-corners, at every railway train, +at every steam-boat; through the agency of every establishment +and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as +master or as man, their profits are very modest and their risks +numerous, while their trouble and responsibility are very +great.</p> +<p>The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of +that wonderful engine—the newspaper press. Still I +think we all know very well that they are to the fountain-head +what a good service of water pipes is to a good water +supply. Just as a goodly store of water at Watford would be +a tantalization to thirsty London if it were not brought into +town for its use, so any amount of news accumulated at +Printing-house Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, would be +if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in its +dissemination.</p> +<p>We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every-day life, +that “We never know the value of anything until we lose +it.” Let us try the newsvendors by the test. A +few years ago we discovered one morning that there was a strike +among the cab-drivers. Now, let us imagine a strike of +newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in vain for the +newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying +to know the shipping news, the commercial news, the foreign news, +the legal news, the criminal news, the dramatic news. +Imagine the paralysis on all the provincial exchanges; the +silence and desertion of all the newsmen’s exchanges in +London. Imagine the circulation of the blood of the nation +and of the country standing still,—the clock of the +world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter—whom I +am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side of Mrs. +Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell and wires +to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear—think how +even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, +and how they would become mere nothing without the activity and +honesty which catch up the threads and stitches of the electric +needle, and scatter them over the land.</p> +<p>It is curious to consider—and the thought occurred to me +this day, when I was out for a stroll pondering over the duties +of this evening, which even then were looming in the distance, +but not quite so far off as I could wish—I found it very +curious to consider that though the newsman must be allowed to be +a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, or what-not +conventional messenger from the clouds, and although we must +allow that he is of this earth, and has a good deal of it on his +boots, still that he has two very remarkable characteristics, to +which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest +claim. One is that he is always the messenger of +civilization; the other that he is at least equally so—not +only in what he brings, but in what he ceases to bring. +Thus the time was, and not so many years ago either, when the +newsman constantly brought home to our doors—though I am +afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened—the +most terrific accounts of murders, of our fellow-creatures being +publicly put to death for what we now call trivial offences, in +the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. +At the same time the newsman regularly brought to us the +infliction of other punishments, which were demoralising to the +innocent part of the community, while they did not operate as +punishments in deterring offenders from the perpetration of +crimes. In those same days, also, the newsman brought to us +daily accounts of a regularly accepted and received system of +loading the unfortunate insane with chains, littering them down +on straw, starving them on bread and water, damaging their +clothes, and making periodical exhibitions of them at a small +charge; and that on a Sunday one of our public resorts was a kind +of demoniacal zoological gardens. They brought us accounts +at the same time of some damage done to the machinery which was +destined to supply the operative classes with employment. +In the same time they brought us accounts of riots for bread, +which were constantly occurring, and undermining society and the +state; of the most terrible explosions of class against class, +and of the habitual employment of spies for the +discovery—if not for the origination—of plots, in +which both sides found in those days some relief. In the +same time the same newsmen were apprising us of a state of +society all around us in which the grossest sensuality and +intemperance were the rule; and not as now, when the ignorant, +the wicked, and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious +exceptions—a state of society in which the professional +bully was rampant, and when deadly duels were daily fought for +the most absurd and disgraceful causes. All this the +newsman has ceased to tell us of. This state of society has +discontinued in England for ever; and when we remember the +undoubted truth, that the change could never have been effected +without the aid of the load which the newsman carries, surely it +is not very romantic to express the hope on his behalf that the +public will show to him some little token of the sympathetic +remembrance which we are all of us glad to bestow on the bearers +of happy tidings—the harbingers of good news.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am +coming to a conclusion; for that conclusion I have a +precedent. You all of you know how pleased you are on your +return from a morning’s walk to learn that the collector +has called. Well, I am the collector for this district, and +I hope you will bear in mind that I have respectfully +called. Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have +presented myself, I need only say technically two things. +First, that its annuities are granted out of its funded capital, +and therefore it is safe as the Bank; and, secondly, that they +are attainable by such a slight exercise of prudence and +fore-thought, that a payment of 25<i>s.</i> extending over a +period of five years, entitles a subscriber—if a +male—to an annuity of £16 a-year, and a female to +£12 a-year. Now, bear in mind that this is an +institution on behalf of which the collector has called, leaving +behind his assurance that what you can give to one of the most +faithful of your servants shall be well bestowed and faithfully +applied to the purposes to which you intend them, and to those +purposes alone.</p> +<h2><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>XXIX.<br /> +NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 20, 1865.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the second annual dinner of the +Institution, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, on Saturday, +the 20th May, 1865, the following speech was delivered by the +chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in proposing the toast of the +evening:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—When a +young child is produced after dinner to be shown to a circle of +admiring relations and friends, it may generally be observed that +their conversation—I suppose in an instinctive remembrance +of the uncertainty of infant life—takes a retrospective +turn. As how much the child has grown since the last +dinner; what a remarkably fine child it is, to have been born +only two or three years ago, how much stronger it looks now than +before it had the measles, and so forth. When a young +institution is produced after dinner, there is not the same +uncertainty or delicacy as in the case of the child, and it may +be confidently predicted of it that if it deserve to live it will +surely live, and that if it deserve to die it will surely +die. The proof of desert in such a case as this must be +mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, in what the society means to +do with its money; secondly, in the extent to which it is +supported by the class with whom it originated, and for whose +benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in the power of its hold +upon the public. I add this lastly, because no such +institution that ever I heard of ever yet dreamed of existing +apart from the public, or ever yet considered it a degradation to +accept the public support.</p> +<p>Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its +money is to grant relief to members in want or distress, and to +the widows, families, parents, or other near relatives of +deceased members in right of a moderate provident annual +subscription—commutable, I observe, for a moderate +provident life subscription—and its members comprise the +whole paid class of literary contributors to the press of the +United Kingdom, and every class of reporters. The number of +its members at this time last year was something below 100. +At the present time it is somewhat above 170, not including 30 +members of the press who are regular subscribers, but have not as +yet qualified as regular members. This number is steadily +on the increase, not only as regards the metropolitan press, but +also as regards the provincial throughout the country. I +have observed within these few days that many members of the +press at Manchester have lately at a meeting expressed a strong +brotherly interest in this Institution, and a great desire to +extend its operations, and to strengthen its hands, provided that +something in the independent nature of life assurance and the +purchase of deferred annuities could be introduced into its +details, and always assuming that in it the metropolis and the +provinces stand on perfectly equal ground. This appears to +me to be a demand so very moderate, that I can hardly have a +doubt of a response on the part of the managers, or of the +beneficial and harmonious results. It only remains to add, +on this head of desert, the agreeable circumstance that out of +all the money collected in aid of the society during the last +year more than one-third came exclusively from the press.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last +claim—the last point of desert—the hold upon the +public—I think I may say that probably not one single +individual in this great company has failed to-day to see a +newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something derived from a +newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her +yesterday. Of all those restless crowds that have this day +thronged the streets of this enormous city, the same may be said +as the general gigantic rule. It may be said almost +equally, of the brightest and the dullest, the largest and the +least provincial town in the empire; and this, observe, not only +as to the active, the industrious, and the healthy among the +population, but also to the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and +the deaf and dumb. Now, if the men who provide this +all-pervading presence, this wonderful, ubiquitous newspaper, +with every description of intelligence on every subject of human +interest, collected with immense pains and immense patience, +often by the exercise of a laboriously-acquired faculty united to +a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the night, at the +sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from the mental +strain) by the constant overtasking of the two most delicate of +the senses, sight and hearing—I say, if the men who, +through the newspapers, from day to day, or from night to night, +or from week to week, furnish the public with so much to +remember, have not a righteous claim to be remembered by the +public in return, then I declare before God I know no working +class of the community who have.</p> +<p>It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an +assembly as this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the +extraordinary combination of remarkable qualities involved in the +production of any newspaper. But assuming the majority of +this associated body to be composed of reporters, because +reporters, of one kind or other, compose the majority of the +literary staff of almost every newspaper that is not a +compilation, I would venture to remind you, if I delicately may, +in the august presence of members of Parliament, how much we, the +public, owe to the reporters if it were only for their skill in +the two great sciences of condensation and rejection. +Conceive what our sufferings, under an Imperial Parliament, +however popularly constituted, under however glorious a +constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr. +Johnson, in one of his violent assertions, declared that +“the man who was afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, +sir.” By no means binding myself to this +opinion—though admitting that the man who is afraid of a +newspaper will generally be found to be rather something like it, +I must still freely own that I should approach my Parliamentary +debate with infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully +served up for my breakfast. Ever since the time when the +old man and his son took their donkey home, which were the old +Greek days, I believe, and probably ever since the time when the +donkey went into the ark—perhaps he did not like his +accommodation there—but certainly from that time downwards, +he has objected to go in any direction required of him—from +the remotest periods it has been found impossible to please +everybody.</p> +<p>I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this +Institution has been objected to. As an open fact +challenging the freëst discussion and inquiry, and seeking +no sort of shelter or favour but what it can win, it has nothing, +I apprehend, but itself, to urge against objection. No +institution conceived in perfect honesty and good faith has a +right to object to being questioned to any extent, and any +institution so based must be in the end the better for it. +Moreover, that this society has been questioned in quarters +deserving of the most respectful attention I take to be an +indisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that +respectful attention, and I have come out of the discussion to +where you see me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded +by institutions between which and this I can descry no +difference. The painters’ art has four or five such +institutions. The musicians’ art, so generously and +charmingly represented here, has likewise several such +institutions. In my own art there is one, concerning the +details of which my noble friend the president of the society and +myself have torn each other’s hair to a considerable +extent, and which I would, if I could, assimilate more nearly to +this. In the dramatic art there are four, and I never yet +heard of any objection to their principle, except, indeed, in the +cases of some famous actors of large gains, who having through +the whole period of their successes positively refused to +establish a right in them, became, in their old age and decline, +repentant suppliants for their bounty. Is it urged against +this particular Institution that it is objectionable because a +parliamentary reporter, for instance, might report a subscribing +M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in little? Apart +from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it is to be +observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate +reporter under pretty much the same suspicion—apart from +this consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper +offices that every such man is reported according to the position +he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force and +weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to be +among the members of this society one so very foolish to his +brethren, and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to +abuse his trust, I confidently ask those here, the best +acquainted with journalism, whether they believe it possible that +any newspaper so ill-conducted as to fail instantly to detect him +could possibly exist as a thriving enterprise for one single +twelvemonth? No, ladies and gentlemen, the blundering +stupidity of such an offence would have no chance against the +acute sagacity of newspaper editors. But I will go further, +and submit to you that its commission, if it be to be dreaded at +all, is far more likely on the part of some recreant +camp-follower of a scattered, disunited, and half-recognized +profession, than when there is a public opinion established in +it, by the union of all classes of its members for the common +good: the tendency of which union must in the nature of things be +to raise the lower members of the press towards the higher, and +never to bring the higher members to the lower level.</p> +<p>I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing words that I +feel a desire to say in remembrance of some circumstances, rather +special, attending my present occupation of this chair, to give +those words something of a personal tone. I am not here +advocating the case of a mere ordinary client of whom I have +little or no knowledge. I hold a brief to-night for my +brothers. I went into the gallery of the House of Commons +as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, and I +left it—I can hardly believe the inexorable +truth—nigh thirty years ago. I have pursued the +calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my +brethren at home in England here, many of my modern successors, +can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed +for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public +speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a +mistake in which would have been to a young man severely +compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a +dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild +country, and through the dead of the night, at the then +surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last +time I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle yard there to +identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once +“took,” as we used to call it, an election speech of +my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight +maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, +and under such a pelting rain, that I remember two goodnatured +colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a +pocket-handkerchief over my notebook, after the manner of a state +canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my +knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery +of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing +to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where +we used to be huddled together like so many sheep—kept in +waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. +Returning home from excited political meetings in the country to +the waiting press in London, I do verily believe I have been +upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this +country. I have been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads, +towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a +wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken postboys, +and have got back in time for publication, to be received with +never-forgotten compliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the +broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever knew.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an +assurance to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of +that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the +rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my +breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I took to +it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe +I could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from long +disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this +hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon does +occur—I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by +mentally following the speaker in the old, old way; and +sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find my hand going on +the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it all. Accept +these little truths as a confirmation of what I know; as a +confirmation of my undying interest in this old calling. +Accept them as a proof that my feeling for the location of my +youth is not a sentiment taken up to-night to be thrown away +to-morrow—but is a faithful sympathy which is a part of +myself. I verily believe—I am sure—that if I +had never quitted my old calling I should have been foremost and +zealous in the interests of this Institution, believing it to be +a sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies and gentlemen, +I am to propose to you to drink “Prosperity to the +Newspaper Press Fund,” with which toast I will connect, as +to its acknowledgment, a name that has shed new brilliancy on +even the foremost newspaper in the world—the illustrious +name of Mr. Russell.</p> +<h2><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>XXX.<br /> +KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date the members of the +“Guild of Literature and Art” proceeded to the +neighbourhood of Stevenage, near the magnificent seat of the +President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built in the +Gothic style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. +After their survey, the party drove to Knebworth to partake of +the hospitality of Lord Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of +the guests, proposed the health of the host in the following +words:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—It was +said by a very sagacious person, whose authority I am sure my +friend of many years will not impugn, seeing that he was named +Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and philosopher of Paul +Clifford—it was said by that remarkable man, “Life is +short, and why should speeches be long?” An aphorism +so sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in the +circumstances in which we are placed, with this delicious weather +and such charming gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on +the present occasion; and the rather so because the speech of my +friend was exhaustive of the subject, as his speeches always are, +though not in the least exhaustive of his audience. In +thanking him for the toast which he has done us the honour to +propose, allow me to correct an error into which he has +fallen. Allow me to state that these houses never could +have been built but for his zealous and valuable co-operation, +and also that the pleasant labour out of which they have arisen +would have lost one of its greatest charms and strongest +impulses, if it had lost his ever ready sympathy with that class +in which he has risen to the foremost rank, and of which he is +the brightest ornament.</p> +<p>Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only +say, on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen +whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will +never be placed under any social disadvantage. They will be +invited to occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of +the high respect in which they are held by their +fellow-workers. As artists I hope they will often exercise +their calling within those walls for the general advantage; and +they will always claim, on equal terms, the hospitality of their +generous neighbour.</p> +<p>Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelings of +my brothers and sisters in literature in proposing “Health, +long life, and prosperity to our distinguished host.” +Ladies and gentlemen, you know very well that when the health, +life, and beauty now overflowing these halls shall have fled, +crowds of people will come to see the place where he lived and +wrote. Setting aside the orator and statesman—for +happily we know no party here but this agreeable +party—setting aside all, this you know very well, that this +is the home of a very great man whose connexion with +Hertfordshire every other county in England will envy for many +long years to come. You know that when this hall is dullest +and emptiest you can make it when you please brightest and +fullest by peopling it with the creations of his brilliant +fancy. Let us all wish together that they may be many +more—for the more they are the better it will be, and, as +he always excels himself, the better they will be. I ask +you to listen to their praises and not to mine, and to let them, +not me, propose his health.</p> +<h2><a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +198</span>XXXI.<br /> +LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as +Chairman at the annual dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and +Musical Fund, at Willis’s Rooms, where he made the +following speech:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies</span>, before I couple you with +the gentlemen, which will be at least proper to the inscription +over my head (St. Valentine’s day)—before I do so, +allow me, on behalf of my grateful sex here represented, to thank +you for the great pleasure and interest with which your gracious +presence at these festivals never fails to inspire us. +There is no English custom which is so manifestly a relic of +savage life as that custom which usually excludes you from +participation in similar gatherings. And although the crime +carries its own heavy punishment along with it, in respect that +it divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornament and of +its most fascinating charm, still the offence is none the less to +be severely reprehended on every possible occasion, as outraging +equally nature and art. I believe that as little is known +of the saint whose name is written here as can well be known of +any saint or sinner. We, your loyal servants, are deeply +thankful to him for having somehow gained possession of one day +in the year—for having, as no doubt he has, arranged the +almanac for 1866—expressly to delight us with the +enchanting fiction that we have some tender proprietorship in you +which we should scarcely dare to claim on a less auspicious +occasion. Ladies, the utmost devotion sanctioned by the +saint we beg to lay at your feet, and any little innocent +privileges to which we may be entitled by the same authority we +beg respectfully but firmly to claim at your hands.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to inform you +that I am going to propose “Prosperity to the Dramatic, +Musical, and Equestrian Sick Fund Association,” and, +further, that I should be going to ask you actively to promote +that prosperity by liberally contributing to its funds, if that +task were not reserved for a much more persuasive speaker. +But I rest the strong claim of the society for its useful +existence and its truly charitable functions on a very few words, +though, as well as I can recollect, upon something like six +grounds. First, it relieves the sick; secondly, it buries +the dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of the profession +to journey to accept new engagements whenever they find +themselves stranded in some remote, inhospitable place, or when, +from other circumstances, they find themselves perfectly crippled +as to locomotion for want of money; fourthly, it often finds such +engagements for them by acting as their honest, disinterested +agent; fifthly, it is its principle to act humanely upon the +instant, and never, as is too often the case within my +experience, to beat about the bush till the bush is withered and +dead; lastly, the society is not in the least degree exclusive, +but takes under its comprehensive care the whole range of the +theatre and the concert-room, from the manager in his room of +state, or in his caravan, or at the drum-head—down to the +theatrical housekeeper, who is usually to be found amongst the +cobwebs and the flies, or down to the hall porter, who passes his +life in a thorough draught—and, to the best of my +observation, in perpetually interrupted endeavours to eat +something with a knife and fork out of a basin, by a dusty fire, +in that extraordinary little gritty room, upon which the sun +never shines, and on the portals of which are inscribed the magic +words, “stage-door.”</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers its +benefits sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by way of gift; +sometimes by way of assurance at very low premiums; sometimes to +members, oftener to non-members; always expressly, remember, +through the hands of a secretary or committee well acquainted +with the wants of the applicants, and thoroughly versed, if not +by hard experience at least by sympathy, in the calamities and +uncertainties incidental to the general calling. One must +know something of the general calling to know what those +afflictions are. A lady who had been upon the stage from +her earliest childhood till she was a blooming woman, and who +came from a long line of provincial actors and actresses, once +said to me when she was happily married; when she was rich, +beloved, courted; when she was mistress of a fine +house—once said to me at the head of her own table, +surrounded by distinguished guests of every degree, “Oh, +but I have never forgotten the hard time when I was on the stage, +and when my baby brother died, and when my poor mother and I +brought the little baby from Ireland to England, and acted three +nights in England, as we had acted three nights in Ireland, with +the pretty creature lying upon the only bed in our lodging before +we got the money to pay for its funeral.”</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to this +hour; but, happily, at this day and in this hour this association +has arisen to be the timely friend of such great distress.</p> +<p>It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fall into +these straits. Struggling artists must necessarily change +from place to place, and thus it frequently happens that they +become, as it were, strangers in every place, and very slight +circumstances—a passing illness, the sickness of the +husband, wife, or child, a serious town, an anathematising +expounder of the gospel of gentleness and forbearance—any +one of these causes may often in a few hours wreck them upon a +rock in the barren ocean; and then, happily, this society, with +the swift alacrity of the life-boat, dashes to the rescue, and +takes them off. Looking just now over the last report +issued by this society, and confining my scrutiny to the head of +illness alone, I find that in one year, I think, 672 days of +sickness had been assuaged by its means. In nine years, +which then formed the term of its existence, as many as 5,500 and +odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and odd days of +sickness, this is a very serious sum, but add the nights! +Add the nights—those long, dreary hours in the twenty-four +when the shadow of death is darkest, when despondency is +strongest, and when hope is weakest, before you gauge the good +that is done by this institution, and before you gauge the good +that really will be done by every shilling that you bestow here +to-night. Add, more than all, that the improvidence, the +recklessness of the general multitude of poor members of this +profession, I should say is a cruel, conventional fable. +Add that there is no class of society the members of which so +well help themselves, or so well help each other. Not in +the whole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and York Minster, +not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange, not in the +whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns of +Court, not in the College of Physicians, not in the College of +Surgeons, can there possibly be found more remarkable instances +of uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of +the generous remembrance of the claims of kindred and +professional brotherhood, than will certainly be found in the +dingiest and dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid +theatre—even in the raggedest tent circus that was ever +stained by weather.</p> +<p>I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering +actors when I address them as one of their trustees at their +General Fund dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody, unless +it be sometimes myself; but, in such a company as the present, I +always feel it my manful duty to bear my testimony to this +fact—first, because it is opposed to a stupid, unfeeling +libel; secondly, because my doing so may afford some slight +encouragement to the persons who are unjustly depreciated; and +lastly, and most of all, because I know it is the truth.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what we +professionally call “ring down” on these +remarks. If you, such members of the general public as are +here, will only think the great theatrical curtain has really +fallen and been taken up again for the night on that dull, dark +vault which many of us know so well; if you will only think of +the theatre or other place of entertainment as empty; if you will +only think of the “float,” or other gas-fittings, as +extinguished; if you will only think of the people who have +beguiled you of an evening’s care, whose little vanities +and almost childish foibles are engendered in their competing +face to face with you for your favour—surely it may be said +their feelings are partly of your making, while their virtues are +all their own. If you will only do this, and follow them +out of that sham place into the real world, where it rains real +rain, snows real snow, and blows real wind; where people sustain +themselves by real money, which is much harder to get, much +harder to make, and very much harder to give away than the pieces +of tobacco-pipe in property bags—if you will only do this, +and do it in a really kind, considerate spirit, this society, +then certain of the result of the night’s proceedings, can +ask no more. I beg to propose to you to drink +“Prosperity to the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick +Fund Association.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[Mr. Dickens, in proposing the next toast, said:—]</p> +<p>Gentlemen: as I addressed myself to the ladies last time, so I +address you this time, and I give you the delightful assurance +that it is positively my last appearance but one on the present +occasion. A certain Mr. Pepys, who was Secretary for the +Admiralty in the days of Charles II., who kept a diary well in +shorthand, which he supposed no one could read, and which +consequently remains to this day the most honest diary known to +print—Mr. Pepys had two special and very strong likings, +the ladies and the theatres. But Mr. Pepys, whenever he +committed any slight act of remissness, or any little peccadillo +which was utterly and wholly untheatrical, used to comfort his +conscience by recording a vow that he would abstain from the +theatres for a certain time. In the first part of Mr. +Pepys’ character I have no doubt we fully agree with him; +in the second I have no doubt we do not.</p> +<p>I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembrance of a +passage in his diary that I was reading the other night, from +which it appears that he was not only curious in plays, but +curious in sermons; and that one night when he happened to be +walking past St. Dunstan’s Church, he turned, went in, and +heard what he calls “a very edifying discourse;” +during the delivery of which discourse, he notes in his +diary—“I stood by a pretty young maid, whom I did +attempt to take by the hand.” But he +adds—“She would not; and I did perceive that she had +pins in her pocket with which to prick me if I should touch her +again—and was glad that I spied her design.” +Afterwards, about the close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. +Pepys found himself near another pretty, fair young maid, who +would seem upon the whole to have had no pins, and to have been +more impressible.</p> +<p>Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest to you +is, that we have been this evening in St. James’s much more +timid than Mr. Pepys was in St. Dunstan’s, and that we have +conducted ourselves very much better. As a slight +recompense to us for our highly meritorious conduct, and as a +little relief to our over-charged hearts, I beg to propose that +we devote this bumper to invoking a blessing on the ladies. +It is the privilege of this society annually to hear a lady speak +for her own sex. Who so competent to do this as Mrs. +Stirling? Surely one who has so gracefully and +captivatingly, with such an exquisite mixture of art, and fancy, +and fidelity, represented her own sex in innumerable charities, +under an infinite variety of phases, cannot fail to represent +them well in her own character, especially when it is, amidst her +many triumphs, the most agreeable of all. I beg to propose +to you “The Ladies,” and I will couple with that +toast the name of Mrs. Stirling.</p> +<h2><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>XXXII.<br /> +LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens +at the Annual Festival of the Royal General Theatrical Fund, held +at the Freemasons’ Tavern, in proposing the health of the +Lord Mayor (Sir Benjamin Phillips), who occupied the chair.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>, in my childish days I +remember to have had a vague but profound admiration for a +certain legendary person called the Lord Mayor’s +fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual +capacity of that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and +I really regarded him with feelings approaching to absolute +veneration, because my nurse informed me on every gastronomic +occasion that the Lord Mayor’s fool liked everything that +was good. You will agree with me, I have no doubt, that if +this discriminating jester had existed at the present time he +could not fail to have liked his master very much, seeing that so +good a Lord Mayor is very rarely to be found, and that a better +Lord Mayor could not possibly be.</p> +<p>You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about to +propose to you to drink the health of the right honourable +gentleman in the chair. As one of the Trustees of the +General Theatrical Fund, I beg officially to tender him my best +thanks for lending the very powerful aid of his presence, his +influence, and his personal character to this very deserving +Institution. As his private friends we ventured to urge +upon him to do us this gracious act, and I beg to assure you that +the perfect simplicity, modesty, cordiality, and frankness with +which he assented, enhanced the gift one thousand fold. I +think it must also be very agreeable to a company like this to +know that the President of the night is not ceremoniously +pretending, “positively for this night only,” to have +an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough +acquaintance with it, and that he has a living and discerning +knowledge of the merits of the great old actors. It is very +pleasant to me to remember that the Lord Mayor and I once +beguiled the tedium of a journey by exchanging our experiences +upon this subject. I rather prided myself on being +something of an old stager, but I found the Lord Mayor so +thoroughly up in all the stock pieces, and so knowing and yet so +fresh about the merits of those who are most and best identified +with them, that I readily recognised in him what would be called +in fistic language, a very ugly customer—one, I assure you, +by no means to be settled by any novice not in thorough good +theatrical training.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancy that +when the giants in Guildhall hear the clock strike one, they come +down to dinner. Similarly, when the City of London shall +hear but one single word in just disparagement of its present +Lord Mayor, whether as its enlightened chief magistrate, or as +one of its merchants, or as one of its true gentlemen, he will +then descend from the high personal place which he holds in the +general honour and esteem. Until then he will remain upon +his pedestal, and my private opinion, between ourselves, is that +the giants will come down long before him.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the Lord +Mayor made his truly remarkable, and truly manly, and unaffected +speech, I could not but be struck by the odd reversal of the +usual circumstances at the Mansion House, which he presented to +our view, for whereas it is a very common thing for persons to be +brought tremblingly before the Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor +presented himself as being brought tremblingly before us. I +hope that the result may hold still further, for whereas it is a +common thing for the Lord Mayor to say to a repentant criminal +who does not seem to have much harm in him, “let me never +see you here again,” so I would propose that we all with +one accord say to the Lord Mayor, “Let us by all means see +you here again on the first opportunity.” Gentlemen, +I beg to propose to you to drink, with all the honours, +“The health of the right hon. the Lord Mayor.”</p> +<h2><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +208</span>XXXIII.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 7, 1866.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs +dining together at the London Tavern, on the above date, Mr. +Dickens, as President of the Nautilus Rowing Club, occupied the +chair. The Speech that follows was made in proposing +“Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of London.” Mr. +Dickens said that:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> could not avoid the remembrance +of what very poor things the amateur rowing clubs on the Thames +were in the early days of his noviciate; not to mention the +difference in the build of the boats. He could not get on +in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous +creature called a “fireman waterman,” who wore an +eminently tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of +which it might be said that if it was less adapted for one thing +than another, that thing was fire. He recollected that this +gentleman had on some former day won a King’s prize wherry, +and they used to go about in this accursed wherry, he and a +partner, doing all the hard work, while the fireman drank all the +beer. The river was very much clearer, freër, and +cleaner in those days than these; but he was persuaded that this +philosophical old boatman could no more have dreamt of seeing the +spectacle which had taken place on Saturday (the procession of +the boats of the Metropolitan Amateur Rowing Clubs), or of seeing +these clubs matched for skill and speed, than he (the Chairman) +should dare to announce through the usual authentic channels that +he was to be heard of at the bar below, and that he was perfectly +prepared to accommodate Mr. James Mace if he meant +business. Nevertheless, he could recollect that he had +turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River Thames with +an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some other +Eton boys, and that he could hold his own against them. +More recently still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxford +he was supposed to cover himself with honour, though he must +admit that he found the “locks” so picturesque as to +require much examination for the discovery of their beauty. +But what he wanted to say was this, that though his +“fireman waterman” was one of the greatest humbugs +that ever existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy, +manly sport this was. Their waterman would bid them pull +away, and assure them that they were certain of winning in some +race. And here he would remark that aquatic sports never +entailed a moment’s cruelty, or a moment’s pain, upon +any living creature. Rowing men pursued recreation under +circumstances which braced their muscles, and cleared the cobwebs +from their minds. He assured them that he regarded such +clubs as these as a “national blessing.” They +owed, it was true, a vast deal to steam power—as was +sometimes proved at matches on the Thames—but, at the same +time, they were greatly indebted to all that tended to keep up a +healthy, manly tone. He understood that there had been a +committee selected for the purpose of arranging a great amateur +regatta, which was to take place off Putney in the course of the +season that was just begun. He could not abstain from +availing himself of this occasion to express a hope that the +committee would successfully carry on its labours to a triumphant +result, and that they should see upon the Thames, in the course +of this summer, such a brilliant sight as had never been seen +there before. To secure this there must be some hard work, +skilful combinations, and rather large subscriptions. But +although the aggregate result must be great, it by no means +followed that it need be at all large in its individual +details.</p> +<p>[In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison +between the paying off or purification of the national debt and +the purification of the River Thames.]</p> +<h2><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>XXXIV.<br /> +LONDON, JUNE 5, 1867.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the +Ninth Anniversary Festival of the Railway Benevolent Society, at +Willis’s Rooms, and in proposing the toast of the evening, +made the following speech.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> we have not yet left +behind us by the distance of nearly fifty years the time when one +of the first literary authorities of this country insisted upon +the speed of the fastest railway train that the Legisture might +disastrously sanction being limited by Act of Parliament to ten +miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, and +every evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly +to Ireland and to Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour; +much as it was objected in its time to vaccination, that it must +have a tendency to impart to human children something of the +nature of the cow, whereas I believe to this very time vaccinated +children are found to be as easily defined from calves as they +ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening influence on the +price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a +contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened +providentially-inflicted pain, which would be a reason for your +not rubbing your face if you had the tooth-ache, or not rubbing +your nose if it itched; so it was evidently predicted that the +railway system, even if anything so absurd could be productive of +any result, would infallibly throw half the nation out of +employment; whereas, you observe that the very cause and occasion +of our coming here together to-night is, apart from the various +tributary channels of occupation which it has opened out, that it +has called into existence a specially and directly employed +population of upwards of 200,000 persons.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of +200,000 persons engaged upon the various railways of the United +Kingdom cannot be rich; and although their duties require great +care and great exactness, and although our lives are every day, +humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still, for the +most of these places there will be always great competition, +because they are not posts which require skilled workmen to +hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high where +competition is great, and you also know very well that railway +directors, in the bargains they make, and the salaries which they +pay, have to deal with the money of the shareholders, to whom +they are accountable. Thus it necessarily happens that +railway officers and servants are not remunerated on the whole by +any means splendidly, and that they cannot hope in the ordinary +course of things to do more than meet the ordinary wants and +hazards of life. But it is to be observed that the general +hazards are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of +their avocations, exceptionally great, so very great, I find, as +to be stateable, on the authority of a parliamentary paper, by +the very startling round of figures, that whereas one railway +traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers is killed, one railway +servant in every 2,000 is killed.</p> +<p>Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual +prudential and benevolent considerations, there came to be +established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago, +the Railway Benevolent Association. I may suppose, +therefore, as it was established nine years ago, that this is the +ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the banns between +this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound +individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done +before, and to ask whether there is any just cause or impediment +why these two parties—the institution and the +public—should not be joined together in holy charity. +As I understand the society, its objects are +five-fold—first, to guarantee annuities which, it is always +to be observed, is paid out of the interest of invested capital, +so that those annuities may be secure and safe—annual +pensions, varying from £10 to £25, to distressed +railway officers and servants incapacitated by age, sickness, or +accident; secondly, to guarantee small pensions to distressed +widows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; +fourthly, to provide temporary relief for all those classes till +lasting relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large +for the purpose; lastly, to induce railway officers and servants +to assure their lives in some well-established office by +sub-dividing the payment of the premiums into small periodical +sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of £10 per +cent. on the amount assured from the funds of the +institution.</p> +<p>This is the society we are met to assist—simple, +sympathetic, practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The +number of its members is large, and rapidly on the increase: they +number 12,000; the amount of invested capital is very nearly +£15,000; it has done a world of good and a world of work in +these first nine years of its life; and yet I am proud to say +that the annual cost of the maintenance of the institution is no +more than £250. And now if you do not know all about +it in a small compass, either I do not know all about it myself, +or the fault must be in my “packing.”</p> +<p>One naturally passes from what the institution is and has +done, to what it wants. Well, it wants to do more good, and +it cannot possibly do more good until it has more money. It +cannot safely, and therefore it cannot honourably, grant more +pensions to deserving applicants until it grows richer, and it +cannot grow rich enough for its laudable purpose by its own +unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. The +means of these railway officers and servants are far too +limited. Even if they were helped to the utmost by the +great railway companies, their means would still be too limited; +even if they were helped—and I hope they shortly will +be—by some of the great corporations of this country, whom +railways have done so much to enrich. These railway +officers and servants, on their road to a very humble and modest +superannuation, can no more do without the help of the great +public, than the great public, on their road from Torquay to +Aberdeen, can do without them. Therefore, I desire to ask +the public whether the servants of the great railways—who, +in fact, are their servants, their ready, zealous, faithful, +hard-working servants—whether they have not established, +whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim to +liberal remembrance.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a story +once told me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have +a certain application. My friend was an American +sea-captain, and, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to say his +story was quite true. He was captain and part owner of a +large American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out, in +exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one +beautiful young lady, and ten more or less beautiful young +gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing, the voyage +was slow. They had made half their distance when the ten +young gentlemen were all madly in love with the beautiful young +lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among the +rivals seemed imminent pending the young lady’s +decision. On this extremity the beautiful young lady +confided in my friend the captain, who gave her discreet +advice. He said: “If your affections are disengaged, +take that one of the young gentlemen whom you like the best and +settle the question.” To this the beautiful young +lady made reply, “I cannot do that because I like them all +equally well.” My friend, who was a man of resource, +hit upon this ingenious expedient, said he, “To-morrow +morning at mid-day, when lunch is announced, do you plunge bodily +overboard, head foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to +rescue you, and take the one of the ten who rushes to your +rescue, and then you can afterwards have him.” The +beautiful young lady highly approved, and did accordingly. +But after she plunged in, nine out of the ten more or less +beautiful young gentlemen plunged in after her; and the tenth +remained and shed tears, looking over the side of the +vessel. They were all picked up, and restored dripping to +the deck. The beautiful young lady upon seeing them said, +“What am I to do? See what a plight they are +in. How can I possibly choose, because every one of them is +equally wet?” Then said my friend the captain, acting +upon a sudden inspiration, “Take the dry one.” +I am sorry to say that she did so, and they lived happy ever +afterwards.</p> +<p>Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactly +reverse my friend the captain’s anecdote, and I entreat the +public in looking about to consider who are fit subjects for +their bounty, to give each his hand with something in it, and not +award a dry hand to the industrious railway servant who is always +at his back. And I would ask any one with a doubt upon this +subject to consider what his experience of the railway servant is +from the time of his departure to his arrival at his +destination. I know what mine is. Here he is, in +velveteen or in a policeman’s dress, scaling cabs, storming +carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of instinct, binding +up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, +counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their +affairs—mostly very complicated—and sticking labels +upon all sorts of articles. I look around—there he +is, in a station-master’s uniform, directing and +overseeing, with the head of a general, and with the courteous +manners of a gentleman; and then there is the handsome figure of +the guard, who inspires confidence in timid passengers. I +glide out of the station, and there he is again with his flags in +his hand at his post in the open country, at the level crossing, +at the cutting, at the tunnel mouth, and at every station on the +road until our destination is reached. In regard, +therefore, to the railway servants with whom we do come into +contact, we may surely have some natural sympathy, and it is on +their behalf that I this night appeal to you. I beg now to +propose “Success to the Railway Benevolent +Society.”</p> +<h2><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>XXXV.<br /> +LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On presiding at a public Meeting of the +Printers’ Readers, held at the Salisbury Hotel, on the +above date, Mr. Dickens said:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> as the meeting was convened, +not to hear him, but to hear a statement of facts and figures +very nearly affecting the personal interests of the great +majority of those present, his preface to the proceedings need be +very brief. Of the details of the question he knew, of his +own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he had consented to occupy +the chair on that occasion at the request of the London +Association of Correctors of the Press for two +reasons—first, because he thought that openness and +publicity in such cases were a very wholesome example very much +needed at this time, and were highly becoming to a body of men +associated with that great public safeguard—the Press; +secondly, because he knew from some slight practical experience, +what the duties of correctors of the press were, and how their +duties were usually discharged; and he could testify, and did +testify, that they were not mechanical, that they were not mere +matters of manipulation and routine; but that they required from +those who performed them much natural intelligence, much +super-added cultivation, readiness of reference, quickness of +resource, an excellent memory, and a clear understanding. +He most gratefully acknowledged that he had never gone through +the sheets of any book that he had written, without having +presented to him by the correctors of the press something that he +had overlooked, some slight inconsistency into which he had +fallen, some little lapse he had made—in short, without +having set down in black and white some unquestionable indication +that he had been closely followed through the work by a patient +and trained mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. And in +this declaration he had not the slightest doubt that the great +body of his brother and sister writers would, as a plain act of +justice, readily concur. For these plain reasons he was +there; and being there he begged to assure them that every one +present—that every speaker—would have a patient +hearing, whatever his opinions might be.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote +of thanks to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair on the +occasion.]</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed the belief +that their very calm and temperate proceedings would finally +result in the establishment of relations of perfect amity between +the employers and the employed, and consequently conduce to the +general welfare of both.</p> +<h2><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>XXXVI.<br /> +LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a +grand complimentary farewell dinner was given to Mr. Dickens at +the Freemasons’ Tavern on the occasion of his revisiting +the United States of America. Lord Lytton officiated as +chairman, and proposed as a toast—“A Prosperous +Voyage, Health, and Long Life to our Illustrious Guest and +Countryman, Charles Dickens”. The toast was drunk +with all the honours, and one cheer more. Mr. Dickens then +rose, and spoke as follows:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">No</span> thanks that I can offer you can +express my sense of my reception by this great assemblage, or can +in the least suggest to you how deep the glowing words of my +friend the chairman, and your acceptance of them, have sunk into +my heart. But both combined have so greatly shaken the +composure which I am used to command before an audience, that I +hope you may observe in me some traces of an eloquence more +expressive than the richest words. To say that I am +fervently grateful to you is to say nothing; to say that I can +never forget this beautiful sight, is to say nothing; to say that +it brings upon me a rush of emotion not only in the present, but +in the thought of its remembrance in the future by those who are +dearest to me, is to say nothing; but to feel all this for the +moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio +says of the wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, +that—“’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide +as a church door; but ’tis enough, ’twill +serve.” <a name="citation220"></a><a href="#footnote220" +class="citation">[220]</a> I may say of the wound in my +breast, newly dealt to me by the hands of my friends, that it is +deeper than the soundless sea, and wider than the whole Catholic +Church. I may safely add that it has for the moment almost +stricken me dumb. I should be more than human, and I assure +you I am very human indeed, if I could look around upon this +brilliant representative company and not feel greatly thrilled +and stirred by the presence of so many brother artists, not only +in literature, but also in the sister arts, especially painting, +among whose professors living and unhappily dead, are many of my +oldest and best friends. I hope that I may, without +presumption, regard this thronging of my brothers around me as a +testimony on their part that they believe that the cause of art +generally has been safe in my keeping, and that it has never been +falsely dealt with by me. Your resounding cheers just now +would have been but so many cruel reproaches to me if I could not +here declare that, from the earliest days of my career down to +this proud night, I have always tried to be true to my +calling. Never unduly to assert it, on the one hand, and +never, on any pretence or consideration, to permit it to be +patronized in my person, has been the steady endeavour of my +life; and I have occasionally been vain enough to hope that I may +leave its social position in England better than I found +it. Similarly, and equally I hope without presumption, I +trust that I may take this general representation of the public +here, through so many orders, pursuits, and degrees, as a token +that the public believe that, with a host of imperfections and +shortcomings on my head, I have as a writer, in my soul and +conscience, tried to be as true to them as they have ever been +true to me. And here, in reference to the inner circle of +the arts and the outer circle of the public, I feel it a duty +to-night to offer two remarks. I have in my duty at odd +times heard a great deal about literary sets and cliques, and +coteries and barriers; about keeping this man up, and keeping +that man down; about sworn disciples and sworn unbelievers, and +mutual admiration societies, and I know not what other dragons in +the upward path. I began to tread it when I was very young, +without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, +or adviser, and I am bound to put in evidence in this place that +I never lighted on these dragons yet. So have I heard in my +day, at divers other odd times, much generally to the effect that +the English people have little or no love of art for its own +sake, and that they do not greatly care to acknowledge or do +honour to the artist. My own experience has uniformly been +exactly the reverse. I can say that of my countrymen, +though I cannot say that of my country.</p> +<p>And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me +this great honour, the story of my going again to America is very +easily and briefly told. Since I was there before a vast +and entirely new generation has arisen in the United +States. Since I was there before most of the best known of +my books have been written and published; the new generation and +the books have come together and have kept together, until at +length numbers of those who have so widely and constantly read +me; naturally desiring a little variety in the relationship +between us, have expressed a strong wish that I should read +myself. This wish, at first conveyed to me through public +channels and business channels, has gradually become enforced by +an immense accumulation of letters from individuals and +associations of individuals, all expressing in the same hearty, +homely, cordial unaffected way, a kind of personal interest in +me—I had almost said a kind of personal affection for me, +which I am sure you would agree with me it would be dull +insensibility on my part not to prize. Little by little +this pressure has become so great that, although, as Charles Lamb +says, my household gods strike a terribly deep root, I have torn +them from their places, and this day week, at this hour, shall be +upon the sea. You will readily conceive that I am inspired +besides by a natural desire to see for myself the astonishing +change and progress of a quarter of a century over there, to +grasp the hands of many faithful friends whom I left there, to +see the faces of the multitude of new friends upon whom I have +never looked, and last, not least, to use my best endeavour to +lay down a third cable of intercommunication and alliance between +the old world and the new. Twelve years ago, when Heaven +knows I little thought I should ever be bound upon the voyage +which now lies before me, I wrote in that form of my writings +which obtains by far the most extensive circulation, these words +of the American nation:—“I know full well, whatever +little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, that they +are a kind, large-hearted, generous, and great +people.” In that faith I am going to see them again; +in that faith I shall, please God, return from them in the +spring; in that same faith to live and to die. I told you +in the beginning that I could not thank you enough, and Heaven +knows I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I may quote +one other short sentence from myself, let it imply all that I +have left unsaid, and yet most deeply feel. Let it, putting +a girdle round the earth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic +at once in this moment, and say, as Tiny Tim observes, “God +bless us every one.”</p> +<h2><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span>XXXVII.<br /> +BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, +on the above date. On his entrance a surprise awaited +him. His reading-stand had been decorated with flowers and +palm-leaves by some of the ladies of the city. He +acknowledged this graceful tribute in the following +words:—“Before allowing Dr. Marigold to tell his +story in his own peculiar way, I kiss the kind, fair hands +unknown, which have so beautifully decorated my table this +evening.” After the Reading, Mr. Dickens attempted in +vain to retire. Persistent hands demanded “one word +more.” Returning to his desk, pale, with a tear in +his eye, that found its way to his voice, he spoke as +follows:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—My +gracious and generous welcome in America, which can never be +obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My departure +begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never until this +moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief life +of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, and I +cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned +towards my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is +a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments from this +time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade +from my view—for ever more. But it is my consolation +that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the +ready response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have +made this place delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely +upon it that that spirit will abide with me as long as I have +sense and sentiment left.</p> +<p>I do not say this with any limited reference to private +friendships that have for years upon years made Boston a +memorable and beloved spot to me, for such private references +have no business in this public place. I say it purely in +remembrance of, and in homage to, the great public heart before +me.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, +and most affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell.</p> +<h2><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>XXXVIII.<br /> +NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1863.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained +at a farewell dinner at Delmonico’s Hotel, previous to his +return to England. Two hundred gentlemen sat down to it; +Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. In acknowledgment of the +toast of his health, proposed by the chairman, Mr. Dickens rose +and said:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—I cannot do better +than take my cue to from your distinguished president, and refer +in my first remarks to his remarks in connexion with the old, +natural, association between you and me. When I received an +invitation from a private association of working members of the +press of New York to dine with them to-day, I accepted that +compliment in grateful remembrance of a calling that was once my +own, and in loyal sympathy towards a brotherhood which, in the +spirit, I have never quieted. To the wholesome training of +severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly +refer my first successes; and my sons will hereafter testify of +their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder by +which he rose. If it were otherwise, I should have but a +very poor opinion of their father, which, perhaps, upon the +whole, I have not. Hence, gentlemen, under any +circumstances, this company would have been exceptionally +interesting and gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed +that, like the fairies’ pavilion in the “Arabian +Nights,” it would be but a mere handful, and I find it turn +out, like the same elastic pavilion, capable of comprehending a +multitude, so much the more proud am I of the honour of being +your guest; for you will readily believe that the more widely +representative of the press in America my entertainers are, the +more I must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments towards +me of that vast institution.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the +land, and I have for upwards of four hard winter months so +contended against what I have been sometimes quite admiringly +assured was “a true American catarrh ”—a +possession which I have throughout highly appreciated, though I +might have preferred to be naturalised by any other outward and +visible signs—I say, gentlemen, so much of my voice has +lately been heard, that I might have been contented with +troubling you no further from my present standing-point, were it +not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here +but on every suitable occasion whatsoever and wheresoever, to +express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in +America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national +generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded +I have been by the amazing changes that I have seen around me on +every side—changes moral, changes physical, changes in the +amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast +new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of +recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes +in the press, without whose advancement no advancement can be +made anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to +suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes +in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions +to correct when I was here first.</p> +<p>And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, +ever since I landed here last November, observed a strict +silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference +to which I will, with your good leave, take you into my +confidence now. Even the press, being human, may be +sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have +in one or two rare instances known its information to be not +perfectly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have +now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have +read of myself than by any printed news that I have ever read in +my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and +perseverance with which I have for some months past been +collecting materials for and hammering away at a new book on +America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has +been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the +Atlantic that I positively declared that no consideration on +earth should induce me to write one. But what I have +intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I +seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own +person, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony +to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at +to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the +smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received +with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, +hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for +the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation +here, and the state of my health. This testimony, so long +as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in +my books, I shall cause to be re-published, as an appendix to +every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to +America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not in +mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of +plain justice and honour.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and +interest in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems +to be a natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an +express object. I was asked in this very city, about last +Christmas time, whether an American was not at some disadvantage +in England as a foreigner. The notion of an American being +regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his ever being +thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly +incongruous and absurd to me, that my gravity was, for the +moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was restored, I +said that for years and years past I hoped I had had as many +American friends and had received as many American visitors as +almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, +fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be an +American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition +anywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenly +spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste +for art, who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the +walls of a certain historical English castle, famous for its +pictures, was refused admission there, according to the strict +rules of the establishment on that day, but who, on merely +representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, +had, not to say the picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed +at his immediate disposal. The other was a lady, who, being +in London, and having a great desire to see the famous +reading-room of the British Museum, was assured by the English +family with whom she stayed that it was unfortunately impossible, +because the place was closed for a week, and she had only three +days there. Upon that lady’s going to the Museum, as +she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an American +lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am +unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young and +exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution +is of an obese habit, and, according to the best of my +observation of him, not very impressible.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral +assurance to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as +I hope to do, to be in England as faithful to America as to +England herself, has no previous conceptions to contend +against. Points of difference there have been, points of +difference there are, points of difference there probably always +will be between the two great peoples. But broadcast in +England is sown the sentiment that those two peoples are +essentially one, and that it rests with them jointly to uphold +the great Anglo-Saxon race, to which our president has referred, +and all its great achievements before the world. And if I +know anything of my countrymen—and they give me credit for +knowing something—if I know anything of my countrymen, +gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of +those Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that +flies except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and +every relation towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony +Absolute recommended that lovers should begin, with “a +little aversion,” but with a great liking and a profound +respect; and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment, or +the little official passion, or the little official policy now, +or then, or here, or there, may be, take my word for it, that the +first enduring, great, popular consideration in England is a +generous construction of justice.</p> +<p>Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, +I do believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both +sides, there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be +better for this globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a +comet, overrun by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and +bear, than that it should present the spectacle of these two +great nations, each of which has, in its own way and hour, +striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, ever again being +arrayed the one against the other. Gentlemen, I cannot +thank your president enough or you enough for your kind reception +of my health, and of my poor remarks, but, believe me, I do thank +you with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable.</p> +<h2><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>XXXIX.<br /> +NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[Mr. Dickens’s last Reading in the +United States was given at the Steinway Hall on the above +date. The task finished he was about to retire, but a +tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came forward +and spoke thus:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—The +shadow of one word has impended over me this evening, and the +time has come at length when the shadow must fall. It is +but a very short one, but the weight of such things is not +measured by their length, and two much shorter words express the +round of our human existence. When I was reading +“David Copperfield” a few evenings since, I felt +there was more than usual significance in the words of Peggotty, +“My future life lies over the sea.” And when I +closed this book just now, I felt most keenly that I was shortly +to establish such an <i>alibi</i> as would have satisfied even +the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been set up +between us, while they have involved for me something more than +mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the +readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.</p> +<p>Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, +however, that you will not pass from my mind. I shall often +realise you as I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in +the green English summer weather. I shall never recall you +as a mere public audience, but rather as a host of personal +friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and +consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you +farewell. God bless you, and God bless the land in which I +leave you.</p> +<h2><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span>XL.<br /> +LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The following speech was delivered by Mr. +Dickens at a Banquet held in his honour at St. George’s +Hall, Liverpool, after his health had been proposed by Lord +Dufferin.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen</span>, +although I have been so well accustomed of late to the sound of +my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect +composure, the occasion is, believe me, very, very different in +respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor +Wilson once confided to me in Edinburgh that I had not the least +idea, from hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he +found himself to be when he was quite alone—so you can form +no conception, from the specimen before you, of the eloquence +with which I shall thank you again and again in some of the +innermost moments of my future life. Often and often, then, +God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant scene, and will +re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I, faithful to this place +in its present aspect, will observe it exactly as it +stands—not one man’s seat empty, not one +woman’s fair face absent, while life and memory abide by +me.</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so +eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful +and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present +visit to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, +based upon a moment’s untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is +the solid fact built upon the rock of experience that when I +first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, +systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, +and to try to express myself to them through the breath of life, +Liverpool stood foremost among the great places out of London to +which I looked with eager confidence and pleasure. And why +was this? Not merely because of the reputation of its +citizens for generous estimation of the arts; not merely because +I had unworthily filled the chair of its great self-educational +institution long ago; not merely because the place had been a +home to me since the well-remembered day when its blessed roofs +and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion of +my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the +Atlantic twenty-seven years ago. Not for one of those +considerations, but because it had been my happiness to have a +public opportunity of testing the spirit of its people. I +had asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation of +Shakespeare’s house. On another occasion I had +ventured to address Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and +Sheridan Knowles. On still another occasion I had addressed +it in the cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and +the kindred arts, and on each and all the response had been +unsurpassably spontaneous, open-handed, and munificent.</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take +a small illustration of my present position from my own peculiar +craft, I would say that there is this objection in writing +fiction to giving a story an autobiographical form, that through +whatever dangers the narrator may pass, it is clear unfortunately +to the reader beforehand that he must have come through them +somehow else he could not have lived to tell the tale. Now, +in speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such honours +as those with which you have enriched me, there is this singular +difficulty in the way of returning thanks, that the speaker must +infallibly come back to himself through whatever oratorical +disasters he may languish on the road. Let me, then, take +the plainer and simpler middle course of dividing my subject +equally between myself and you. Let me assure you that +whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen +or by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved in the +acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly +refined which has seven times passed the furnace, so a fancy may +be said to become more and more refined each time it passes +through the human heart. You have, and you know you have, +brought to the consideration of me that quality in yourselves +without which I should but have beaten the air. Your +earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, +and your tears have overflowed my eyes. All that I can +claim for myself in establishing the relations which exist +between us is constant fidelity to hard work. My literary +fellows about me, of whom I am so proud to see so many, know very +well how true it is in all art that what seems the easiest done +is oftentimes the most difficult to do, and that the smallest +truth may come of the greatest pains—much, as it occurred +to me at Manchester the other day, as the sensitive touch of Mr. +Whitworth’s measuring machine, comes at last, of Heaven and +Manchester and its mayor only know how much hammering—my +companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think it only +right the public should know too, that in our careful toil and +trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence—not in +any little gifts, misused by fits and starts—lies our +highest duty at once to our calling, to one another, to +ourselves, and to you.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have +to clear myself of two very unexpected accusations. The +first is a most singular charge preferred against me by my old +friend Lord Houghton, that I have been somewhat unconscious of +the merits of the House of Lords. Now, ladies and +gentlemen, seeing that I have had some few not altogether obscure +or unknown personal friends in that assembly, seeing that I had +some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure +peer lately known in England by the name of Lord Brougham; seeing +that I regard with some admiration and affection another obscure +peer wholly unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; +seeing also that I have had for some years some slight admiration +of the extraordinary judicial properties and amazingly acute mind +of a certain Lord Chief Justice popularly known by the name of +Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no man in England whom I +respect more in his public capacity, whom I love more in his +private capacity, or from whom I have received more remarkable +proofs of his honour and love of literature than another obscure +nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into +consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend’s +accusation. When I asked him, on his sitting down, what +amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he replied that +he had never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. Then, +ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all. Because it is a +remarkable fact that in the days when that depreciative and +profoundly unnatural character was invented there was no Lord +Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House +of Commons a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton +Milnes.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close +with the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more +serious, and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness +in half a dozen plain words. When I first took literature +as my profession in England, I calmly resolved within myself +that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, literature should +be my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time that +it was not so well understood in England as it was in other +countries that literature was a dignified profession, by which +any man might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself +that in my person literature should stand, and by itself, of +itself, and for itself; and there is no consideration on earth +which would induce me to break that bargain.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your +great kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you +have drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my +heart if it had not so unfortunately happened that, for many +sufficient reasons, I lost my heart at between half-past six and +half-past seven to-night.</p> +<h2><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>THE +OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE.<br /> +SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30, 1869.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The International University Boat Race having +taken place on August 27, the London Rowing Club invited the +Crews to a Dinner at the Crystal Palace on the following +Monday. The dinner was followed by a grand display of +pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in proposing the health of the +Crews, made the following speech:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>, flushed with fireworks, +I can warrant myself to you as about to imitate those gorgeous +illusions by making a brief spirt and then dying out. And, +first of all, as an invited visitor of the London Rowing Club on +this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in the name of the +other invited visitors present—always excepting the +distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting—to +thank the president for the modesty and the courtesy with which +he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of his +evening’s duty. It is the more graceful in him to do +this because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily +do it himself, as this is a case of all others in which it is +according to good taste and the very principles of things that +the great social vice, speech-making, should hide it diminished +head before the great social virtue action. However, there +is an ancient story of a lady who threw her glove into an arena +full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant lover to climb down +and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferring from the +action the worth of the lady, risked his life for the glove, and +then threw it rightly in her face as a token of his eternal +adieu. <a name="citation239"></a><a href="#footnote239" +class="citation">[239]</a> I take up the President’s +glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and +of my real interest in the cause in which it was thrown down, and +I now profess my readiness to do even injustice to the duty which +he has assigned me.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was +published in the United States within a short time before my last +visit to that hospitable land, containing ninety-five biographies +of young men, for the most part well-born and well nurtured, and +trained in various peaceful pursuits of life, who, when the flag +of their country waved them from those quiet paths in which they +were seeking distinction of various kinds, took arms in the dread +civil war which elicited so much bravery on both sides, and died +in the defence of their country. These great spirits +displayed extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the +invention, of military tactics, in the combining and commanding +of great masses of men, in surprising readiness of self-resource +for the general good, in humanely treating the sick and the +wounded, and in winning to themselves a very rare amount of +personal confidence and trust. They had all risen to be +distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; +they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a +serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian +spirit; and they had all been educated in one +school—Harvard University.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine +descendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination +with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit +with which they resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say +after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself +in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not +recognise in her boat’s crew the leaven of her soldiers, +and who does not feel that she has now a greater right than ever +to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to her breast when +they return with resounding acclamations? It is related of +the Duke of Wellington that he once told a lady who foolishly +protested that she would like to see a great victory that there +was only one thing worse than a great victory, and that was a +great defeat.</p> +<p>But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the +term a great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of +daring fellows who make a preliminary dash of three or four +thousand stormy miles to meet great conquerors on their own +domain—who do not want the stimulus of friends and home, +but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear land in the +shouts and cheers of another—and who strive to the last +with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new +feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me +that such a defeat is a great, noble part of a manly, wholesome +action; and I say that it is in the essence and life-blood of +such a defeat to become at last sure victory.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going +to propose, and you know equally well that in thus glancing first +towards our friends of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and +respond to the instinctive courtesy of Oxford towards our +brothers from a distance—a courtesy extending, I hope, and +I do not doubt, to any imaginable limits except allowing them to +take the first place in last Friday’s match, if they could +by any human and honourable means be kept in the second. I +will not avail myself of the opportunity provided for me by the +absence of the greater part of the Oxford crew—indeed, of +all but one, and that, its most modest and devoted member—I +will not avail myself of the golden opportunity considerately +provided for me to say a great deal in honour of the Oxford +crew. I know that the gentleman who attends here attends +under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if he were +less in earnest his filial affection could not possibly allow him +to be here.</p> +<p>It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you, +that I should say here, and now, that we all unite with one +accord in regarding the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of +England—and that we should consider it very weak indeed to +set anything short of England’s very best in opposition to +or competition with America; though it certainly must be +confessed—I am bound in common justice and honour to admit +it—it must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, +as I heard a discontented gentleman remark—last Friday +night, about ten o’clock, when he was baiting a very small +horse in the Strand—he was one of eleven with pipes in a +chaise cart—I say it must be admitted in disparagement of +the Oxford men on the authority of this gentleman, that they have +won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and +that “they ought to do it, but they won’t.”</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor +testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant +spectacle which they presented to countless thousands last +Friday, I am sure I express not only your feeling, and my +feeling, and the feeling of the Blue, but also the feeling of the +whole people of England, when I cordially give them welcome to +our English waters and English ground, and also bid them +“God speed” in their voyage home. As the +greater includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I +think it is no very bold augury to predict that in the friendly +contests yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both sides of +the Atlantic—there are great river triumphs for Harvard +University yet in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English +portion of this audience that these are very dangerous men. +Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University who +served as a common seaman two years before the mast, <a +name="citation242"></a><a href="#footnote242" +class="citation">[242]</a> and who wrote about the best sea book +in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those +young American gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across +the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim +with the men who believed in him.</p> +<p>And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial +acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from +a distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be +received on their return home will find a ready echo in every +corner of England—and further, that none of their immediate +countrymen—I use the qualifying term immediate, for we are, +as our president said, fellow countrymen, thank God—that +none of their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what they +did in this great race, can be more thoroughly imbued with a +sense of their indomitable courage and their high deserts than +are their rivals and their hosts to-night. Gentlemen, I beg +to propose to you to drink the crews of Harvard and Oxford +University, and I beg to couple with that toast the names of Mr. +Simmons and Mr. Willan.</p> +<h2><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>XLII.<br /> +BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[Inaugural Address on the opening of the +Winter Session of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.</p> +<p class="gutsumm">One who was present during the delivery of the +following speech, informs the editor that “no note of any +kind was referred to by Mr. Dickens—except the Quotation +from Sydney Smith. The address, evidently carefully +prepared, was delivered without a single pause, in Mr. +Dickens’s best manner, and was a very great +success.”]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—We +often hear of our common country that it is an over-populated +one, that it is an over-pauperized one, that it is an +over-colonizing one, and that it is an over-taxed one. Now, +I entertain, especially of late times, the heretical belief that +it is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of public +speech-making going about in various directions which might be +advantageously dispensed with. If I were free to act upon +this conviction, as president for the time being of the great +institution so numerously represented here, I should immediately +and at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of a +highly edifying, because of a very exemplary character. But +I happen to be the institution’s willing servant, not its +imperious master, and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper +speech—not to say brazen—from whomsoever it exalts to +my high office. Some African tribes—not to draw the +comparison disrespectfully—some savage African tribes, when +they make a king require him perhaps to achieve an exhausting +foot-race under the stimulus of considerable popular prodding and +goading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentally knocked +about the head by his Privy Council, or perhaps to be dipped in a +river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities +of something nasty out of a calabash—at all events, to +undergo some purifying ordeal in presence of his admiring +subjects.</p> +<p>I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly +warned by your constituted authorities that whatever I might +happen to say here to-night would be termed an inaugural address +on the entrance upon a new term of study by the members of your +various classes; for, besides that, the phrase is something +high-sounding for my taste, I avow that I do look forward to that +blessed time when every man shall inaugurate his own work for +himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then have +inaugurated a new era indeed, and one in which the Lord’s +Prayer will become a fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. +Remembering, however, that you may call anything by any name +without in the least changing its nature—bethinking myself +that you may, if you be so minded, call a butterfly a buffalo, +without advancing a hair’s breadth towards making it +one—I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to +the very homely intention I had previously formed. This was +merely to tell you, the members, students, and friends of the +Birmingham and Midland Institute—firstly, what you cannot +possibly want to know, (this is a very popular oratorical theme); +secondly, what your institution has done; and, thirdly, what, in +the poor opinion of its President for the time being, remains for +it to do and not to do.</p> +<p>Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. +You cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the +abstract advantages of knowledge or the beauties of +self-improvement. If you had any such requirement you would +not be here. I conceive that you are here because you have +become thoroughly penetrated with such principles, either in your +own persons or in the persons of some striving fellow-creatures, +on whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I +conceive that you are here because you feel the welfare of the +great chiefly adult educational establishment, whose doors stand +really open to all sorts and conditions of people, to be +inseparable from the best welfare of your great town and its +neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, +and say that we all—every one of us here—perfectly +well know that the benefits of such an establishment must extend +far beyond the limits of this midland county—its fires and +smoke,—and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole +community, I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by +Mr. Babbage, in his ninth “Bridgewater Treatise,” +that a mere spoken word—a single articulated syllable +thrown into the air—may go on reverberating through +illimitable space for ever and for ever, seeing that there is no +rim against which it can strike—no boundary at which it can +possibly arrive. Similarly it may be said—not as an +ingenious speculation, but as a stedfast and absolute +fact—that human calculation cannot limit the influence of +one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, modestly +possessed, and faithfully used.</p> +<p>As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are +in the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each +of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so +it is certain that every man, however obscure, however far +removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men +impressible for good, and impressible for evil, and that it is in +the eternal nature of things that he cannot really improve +himself without in some degree improving other men. And +observe, this is especially the case when he has improved himself +in the teeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity +succeeding to a neglected or an ill-taught youth, in the few +daily hours remaining to him after ten or twelve hours’ +labour, in the few pauses and intervals of a life of toil; for +then his fellows and companions have assurance that he can have +known no favouring conditions, and that they can do what he has +done, in wresting some enlightenment and self-respect from what +Lord Lytton finely calls—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Those twin gaolers of the daring heart,<br +/> +Low birth and iron fortune.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in +your own observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there +can be very few persons in Birmingham, of all places under +heaven, who would contest the position that the more cultivated +the employed the better for the employer, and the more cultivated +the employer the better for the employed; therefore, my +references to what you do not want to know shall here cease and +determine.</p> +<p>Next, with reference to what your institution has done on my +summary, which shall be as concise and as correct as my +information and my remembrance of it may render possible, I +desire to lay emphatic stress. Your institution, sixteen +years old, and in which masters and workmen study together, has +outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 or +2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of +its vigorous vitality that of its industrial-students almost half +are artisans in the receipt of weekly wages. I think I am +correct in saying that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, +tradesmen, or tradesmen’s sons. I note with +particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the +gentler sex, without whom no institution whatever can truly claim +to be either a civilising or a civilised one. The increased +attendance at your educational classes is always greatest on the +part of the artisans—the class within my experience the +least reached in any similar institutions elsewhere, and whose +name is the oftenest and the most constantly taken in vain. +But it is specially reached here, not improbably because it is, +as it should be, specially addressed in the foundation of the +industrial department, in the allotment of the direction of the +society’s affairs, and in the establishment of what are +called its penny classes—a bold, and, I am happy to say, a +triumphantly successful experiment, which enables the artisan to +obtain sound evening instruction in subjects directly bearing +upon his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness, as +arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical +geography, and singing, on payment of the astoundingly low fee of +a single penny every time he attends the class. I beg +emphatically to say that I look upon this as one of the most +remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof of the +artisan, and if your institution had done nothing else in all its +life, I would take my stand by it on its having done this.</p> +<p>Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has its +general department, offering all the advantages of a first-class +literary institution. It has its reading-rooms, its +library, its chemical laboratory, its museum, its art department, +its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures on subjects of +various and comprehensive interest, delivered by lecturers of the +highest qualifications. Very well. But it may be +asked, what are the practical results of all these +appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that +your institution should have educated those who are now its +teachers. That would be a very remarkable fact. +Supposing, besides, it should, so to speak, have educated +education all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficient +teachers into many and divers schools. Suppose the young +student, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should be +presently snapped up for the laboratory of the great and famous +hospitals. Suppose that in nine years its industrial +students should have carried off a round dozen of the much +competed for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the +Government department, besides two local prizes originating in +the generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town +Council, having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to +receive the Whitworth prizes, should find him here. Suppose +that one of the industrial students should turn his chemical +studies to the practical account of extracting gold from waste +colour water, and of taking it into custody, in the very act of +running away with hundreds of pounds down the town drains. +Suppose another should perceive in his books, in his studious +evenings, what was amiss with his master’s until then +inscrutably defective furnace, and should go straight—to +the great annual saving of that master—and put it +right. Supposing another should puzzle out the means, until +then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of +coloured glass. Supposing another should qualify himself to +vanquish one by one, as they daily arise, all the little +difficulties incidental to his calling as an electro-plater, and +should be applied to by his companions in the shop in all +emergencies under the name of the +“Encyclopædia.” Suppose a long procession +of such cases, and then consider that these are not suppositions +at all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating in the one +special and significant fact that, with a single solitary +exception, every one of the institution’s industrial +students who have taken its prizes within ten years, have since +climbed to higher situations in their way of life.</p> +<p>As to the extent to which the institution encourages the +artisan to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the +little shackling prejudices and observances perchance existing in +his trade when they will not bear the test of inquiry, that is +only to be equalled by the extent to which it encourages him to +feel. There is a certain tone of modest manliness pervading +all the little facts which I have looked through which I found +remarkably impressive. The decided objection on the part of +industrial students to attend classes in their working clothes, +breathes this tone, as being a graceful and at the same time +perfectly independent recognition of the place and of one +another. And this tone is admirably illustrated in a +different way, in the case of a poor bricklayer, who, being in +temporary reverses through the illness of his family, and having +consequently been obliged to part with his best clothes, and +being therefore missed from his classes, in which he had been +noticed as a very hard worker, was persuaded to attend them in +his working clothes. He replied, “No, it was not +possible. It must not be thought of. It must not come +into question for a moment. It would be supposed, or it +might be thought, that he did it to attract attention.” And +the same man being offered by one of the officers a loan of money +to enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined +it, on the ground that he came to the institution to learn and to +know better how to help himself, not otherwise to ask help, or to +receive help from any man. Now, I am justified in calling +this the tone of the institution, because it is no isolated +instance, but is a fair and honourable sample of the spirit of +the place, and as such I put it at the conclusion—though +last certainly not least—of my references to what your +institution has indubitably done.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the +humble opinion of the evanescent officer before you, remains for +the institution to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it +towards the closing pages of his grand history of the French +Revolution, “This we are now with due brevity to glance at; +and then courage, oh listener, I see land!” <a +name="citation250"></a><a href="#footnote250" +class="citation">[250]</a> I earnestly hope—and I +firmly believe—that your institution will do henceforth as +it has done hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and +believe that it will know among its members no distinction of +persons, creed, or party, but that it will conserve its place of +assemblage as a high, pure ground, on which all such +considerations shall merge into the one universal, heaven-sent +aspiration of the human soul to be wiser and better. I hope +and believe that it will always be expansive and elastic; for +ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging the circle of its +members, of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater +and greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition to +stand still than time does, or life does, or the seasons +do. And above all things, I hope, and I feel confident from +its antecedents, that it will never allow any consideration on +the face of the earth to induce it to patronise or to be +patronised, for I verily believe that the bestowal and receipt of +patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it +has done more to prevent really good objects, and to lower really +high character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest +antagonism could have effected in twice the time.</p> +<p>I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the +timid opponents of intellectual progress; but in this connexion +generally I cannot forbear from offering a remark which is much +upon my mind. It is commonly assumed—much too +commonly—that this age is a material age, and that a +material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained +lately to see this assumption repeated in certain influential +quarters for which I have a high respect, and desire to have a +higher. I am afraid that by dint of constantly being +reiterated, and reiterated without protest, this +assumption—which I take leave altogether to deny—may +be accepted by the more unthinking part of the public as +unquestionably true; just as caricaturists and painters, +professedly making a portrait of some public man, which was not +in the least like him to begin with, have gone on repeating and +repeating it until the public came to believe that it must be +exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, and really +have at last, in the fulness of time, grown almost disposed to +resent upon him their tardy discovery—really to resent upon +him their late discovery—that he was not like it. I +confess, standing here in this responsible situation, that I do +not understand this much-used and much-abused phrase—the +“material age.” I cannot comprehend—if +anybody can I very much doubt—its logical +signification. For instance, has electricity become more +material in the mind of any sane or moderately insane man, woman, +or child, because of the discovery that in the good providence of +God it could be made available for the service and use of man to +an immeasurably greater extent than for his destruction? Do +I make a more material journey to the bed-side of my dying parent +or my dying child when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles +an hour, than when I travel thither at the rate of six? +Rather, in the swiftest case, does not my agonised heart become +over-fraught with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from whom +alone could have proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my +suspense? What is the materiality of the cable or the wire +compared with the materiality of the spark? What is the +materiality of certain chemical substances that we can weigh or +measure, imprison or release, compared with the materiality of +their appointed affinities and repulsions presented to them from +the instant of their creation to the day of judgment? When +did this so-called material age begin? With the use of +clothing; with the discovery of the compass; with the invention +of the art of printing? Surely, it has been a long time +about; and which is the more material object, the farthing tallow +candle that will not give me light, or that flame of gas which +will?</p> +<p>No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or +deceived by any fine, vapid, empty words. The true material +age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand +revelations of nature are granted, because they are ignorantly +and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly +sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the +mad braggart defying the lightning and the modern historical +picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he +might the more profoundly study that which was set before him to +be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses +to my mind the distinction between the much-maligned material +sages—material in one sense, I suppose, but in another very +immaterial sages—of the Celestial Empire school. +Consider whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or unnatural, +reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, +and finding myself surrounded by such discovered wonders on every +hand, should sometimes ask myself the question—should put +to myself the solemn consideration—can these things be +among those things which might have been disclosed by divine lips +nigh upon two thousand years ago, but that the people of that +time could not bear them? And whether this be so or no, if +I am so surrounded on every hand, is not my moral responsibility +tremendously increased thereby, and with it my intelligence and +submission as a child of Adam and of the dust, before that +Shining Source which equally of all that is granted and all that +is withheld holds in His mighty hands the unapproachable +mysteries of life and death.</p> +<p>To the students of your industrial classes generally I have +had it in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two +words, “Courage—Persevere.” This is the +motto of a friend and worker. Not because the eyes of +Europe are upon them, for I don’t in the least believe it; +nor because the eyes of even England are upon them, for I +don’t in the least believe it; not because their doings +will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at street corners, for +no such musical performances will take place; not because +self-improvement is at all certain to lead to worldly success, +but simply because it is good and right of itself, and because, +being so, it does assuredly bring with it its own resources and +its own rewards. I would further commend to them a very +wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct of the +understanding which was given more than half a century ago by the +Rev. Sydney Smith—wisest and wittiest of the friends I have +lost. He says—and he is speaking, you will please +understand, as I speak, to a school of volunteer +students—he says: “There is a piece of foppery which +is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, +of knowing all sciences and excelling in all +arts—chymistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, +reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, and natural +philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very +often is, ‘Take the Admirable Crichton for your model, I +would have you ignorant of nothing.’ Now,” says +he, “my advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to +be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may +avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.”</p> +<p>To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally +good of my own life and the life of every eminent man I have ever +known. The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, +attainable quality in every study and in every pursuit is the +quality of attention. My own invention or imagination, such +as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would never have +served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, +patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, +vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association of +ideas—such mental qualities, like the qualities of the +apparition of the externally armed head in <i>Macbeth</i>, will +not be commanded; but attention, after due term of submissive +service, always will. Like certain plants which the poorest +peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by any +one, and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth +flowers and fruit. I can most truthfully assure you +by-the-by, that this eulogium on attention is so far quite +disinterested on my part as that it has not the least reference +whatever to the attention with which you have honoured me.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but +reflect how often you have probably heard within these walls one +of the foremost men, and certainly one of the very best speakers, +if not the very best, in England. I could not say to +myself, when I began just now, in Shakespeare’s +line—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“I will be <span +class="GutSmall">BRIGHT</span> and shining gold,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, “I +will be as natural and easy as I possibly can,” because my +heart has all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towards +Birmingham and Birmingham men. I have said that I bear an +old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a +small omission, and add “and Birmingham women.” +This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and +if by rubbing it I could raise the spirit that was obedient to +Aladdin’s ring, I heartily assure you that my first +instruction to that genius on the spot should be to place himself +at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens +said:—]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that +I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas +is out, and shall have the great interest of seeing the faces and +touching the bands of the successful competitors in your lists, I +will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible +foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably result from a second +speech. I thank you most heartily, and I most sincerely and +fervently say to you, “Good night, and God bless +you.” In reference to the appropriate and excellent +remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge my conscience of my +political creed, which is contained in two articles, and has no +reference to any party or persons. My faith in the people +governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the People +governed is, on the whole, illimitable.</p> +<h2><a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>XLIII.<br /> +BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the evening of the above date, Mr. +Dickens, as President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, +distributed the prizes and certificates awarded to the most +successful students in the first year. The proceedings took +place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens entered at eight +o’clock, accompanied by the officers of the Institute, and +was received with loud applause. After the lapse of a +minute or two, he rose and said:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—When I +last had the honour to preside over a meeting of the Institution +which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a +certain superabundance of public speaking which seems to me to +distinguish the present time. It will require very little +self-denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; +firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly, +because we have definite and highly interesting action before us +to-night. We have now to bestow the rewards which have been +brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the +society’s lists. I say the most successful, because +to-night we should particularly observe, I think, that there is +success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some victory +gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at +all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and +indifference; and competition for these prizes involves, besides, +in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery +asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made. +Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be +certain that he has still won much—very much—and that +he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have +passed him in the race.</p> +<p>I have applied the word “rewards” to these prizes, +and I do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic worth +in silver or gold, but precisely because they do not. They +represent what is above all price—what can be stated in no +arithmetical figures, and what is one of the great needs of the +human soul—encouraging sympathy. They are an +assurance to every student present or to come in your +institution, that he does not work either neglected or +unfriended, and that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and +appreciated. Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of +this large assembly, and striking to the breasts of the +recipients that thrill which is inseparable from any great united +utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely +worthy of the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the +reward; and by a sensitive spirit can never be forgotten.</p> +<p>[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive +of “Pickwick,” which was received with laugher. +Mr. Dickens made some remarks to the lady in an undertone; and +then observed to the audience, “I have recommended Miss +Winkle to change her name.” The prizes having been +distributed, Mr. Dickens made a second brief speech. He +said:—]</p> +<p>The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged +myself of the delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if +the recipients of these prizes and certificates who have come +upon this platform have had the genuine pleasure in receiving +their acknowledgments from my hands that I have had in placing +them in theirs, they are in a true Christian temper +to-night. I have the painful sense upon me, that it is +reserved for some one else to enjoy this great satisfaction of +mind next time. It would be useless for the few short +moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn +King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign will very +soon sit upon my inconstant throne. To-night I abdicate, +or, what is much the same thing in the modern annals of +Royalty—I am politely dethroned. This melancholy +reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small +point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission +to say a closing word.</p> +<p>When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some +remarks of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession +of my political faith—or perhaps I should better say want +of faith. It imported that I have very little confidence in +the people who govern us—please to observe +“people” there will be with a small +“p,”—but that I have great confidence in the +People whom they govern; please to observe “people” +there with a large “P.” This was shortly and +elliptically stated, and was with no evil intention, I am +absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained. +Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one +which I do see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains +of truth at the bottom of it—a fiction called the +“Circumlocution Office,”—and perhaps also as +the writer of an idle book or two, whose public opinions are not +obscurely stated—perhaps in these respects I do not +sufficiently bear in mind Hamlet’s caution to speak by the +card lest equivocation should undo me.</p> +<p>Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may +be no mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I +will re-state my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a +great thinker, a great writer, and a great scholar, <a +name="citation259"></a><a href="#footnote259" +class="citation">[259]</a> whose death, unfortunately for +mankind, cut short his “History of Civilization in +England:”—“They may talk as they will about +reforms which Government has introduced and improvements to be +expected from legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more +commanding view of human affairs, will soon discover that such +hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are +nearly always the obstructors of society instead of its helpers, +and that in the extremely few cases where their measures have +turned out well their success has been owing to the fact that, +contrary to their usual custom, they have implicitly obeyed the +spirit of their time, and have been—as they always should +be—the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes they +are bound to give a public and legal sanction.”</p> +<h2><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +260</span>XLIV.<br /> +LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846. <a name="citation260"></a><a +href="#footnote260" class="citation">[260]</a></h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The first anniversary festival of the General +Theatrical Fund Association was held on the evening of the above +date at the London Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. +Dickens, who thus proposed the principal toast:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—In offering to you +a toast which has not as yet been publicly drunk in any company, +it becomes incumbent on me to offer a few words in explanation: +in the first place, premising that the toast will be “The +General Theatrical Fund.”</p> +<p>The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate to-night, was +founded seven years ago, for the purpose of granting permanent +pensions to such of the <i>corps dramatique</i> as had retired +from the stage, either from a decline in their years or a decay +of their powers. Collected within the scope of its +benevolence are all actors and actresses, singers, or dancers, of +five years’ standing in the profession. To relieve +their necessities and to protect them from want is the great end +of the Society, and it is good to know that for seven years the +members of it have steadily, patiently, quietly, and +perseveringly pursued this end, advancing by regular +contribution, moneys which many of them could ill afford, and +cheered by no external help or assistance of any kind +whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, +but I trust that we shall establish to-night that its time is +out, and that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing +and brilliant career.</p> +<p>I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and +were when this institution was founded, two other institutions +existing of a similar nature—Covent Garden and Drury +Lane—both of long standing, both richly endowed. It +cannot, however, be too distinctly understood, that the present +Institution is not in any way adverse to those. How can it +be when it is only a wide and broad extension of all that is most +excellent in the principles on which they are founded? That +such an extension was absolutely necessary was sufficiently +proved by the fact that the great body of the dramatic corps were +excluded from the benefits conferred by a membership of either of +these institutions; for it was essential, in order to become a +member of the Drury Lane Society, that the applicant, either he +or she, should have been engaged for three consecutive seasons as +a performer. This was afterwards reduced, in the case of +Covent Garden, to a period of two years, but it really is as +exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell you that +Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might +play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put them +all into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard +within its walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous +prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. In like +manner, Drury Lane is conducted now with almost a sole view to +the opera and ballet, insomuch that the statue of Shakespeare +over the door serves as emphatically to point out his grave as +his bust did in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon. How can +the profession generally hope to qualify for the Drury Lane or +Covent Garden institution, when the oldest and most distinguished +members have been driven from the boards on which they have +earned their reputations, to delight the town in theatres to +which the General Theatrical Fund alone extended?</p> +<p>I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other +Funds, with which I have had the honour of being connected at +different periods of my life. At the time those +Associations were established, an engagement at one of those +theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful +engagement would last a whole life; but an engagement of two +months’ duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old +Parr of an engagement just now. It should never be +forgotten that when those two funds were established, the two +great theatres were protected by patent, and that at that time +the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of +the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see +around me could no more belong to the minor theatres of that day +than they could now belong to St. Bartholomew fair.</p> +<p>As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they +have done, so I honour this for the much greater good it is +resolved to do. It is not because I love them less, but +because I love this more—because it includes more in its +operation.</p> +<p>Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who +stand so much in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win +the great prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of +the theatrical system, and by consequence bear a part in +contributing to our pleasures. We owe them a debt which we +ought to pay. The beds of such men are not of roses, but of +very artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are lives of +care and privation, and hard struggles with very stern +realities. It is from among the poor actors who drink wine +from goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and +who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful appetites for +steaks,—it is from their ranks that the most triumphant +favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, the +greater the instruction and delight we derive from the rich +English drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect the +humblest of those votaries of the art who add to our instruction +and amusement.</p> +<p>Hazlitt has well said that “There is no class of society +whom so many persons regard with affection as actors. We +greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; +they almost always recal to us pleasant associations.” <a +name="citation263"></a><a href="#footnote263" +class="citation">[263]</a> When they have strutted and +fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no +more—but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are +happy in their old age. When they have passed for the last +time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are +all familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and +darkness,—but let them pass into cheerfulness and +light—into a contented and happy home.</p> +<p>This is the object for which we have met; and I am too +familiar with the English character not to know that it will be +effected. When we come suddenly in a crowded street upon +the careworn features of a familiar face—crossing us like +the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten—let us not recal +those features with pain, in sad remembrance of what they once +were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or two +to meet it once again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of +a moment of care, who has taught us to sympathize with virtuous +grief, cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own—and we +all know how pleasant are such tears. Let such a face be +ever remembered as that of our benefactor and our friend.</p> +<p>I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been +in any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some +pleasant association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, +out of my varied experience, I could not remember even one from +which I had not brought some favourable impression, and that, +commencing with the period when I believed the clown was a being +born into the world with infinite pockets, and ending with that +in which I saw the other night, outside one of the “Royal +Saloons,” a playbill which showed me ships completely +rigged, carrying men, and careering over boundless and +tempestuous oceans. And now, bespeaking your kindest +remembrance of our theatres and actors, I beg to propose that you +drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast was drunk in this +toast-drinking city “Prosperity to the General Theatrical +Fund.”</p> +<h2><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>XLV.<br /> +LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the above evening a Soirée of the +Leeds Mechanics’ Institution took place, at which about +1200 persons were present. The chair was taken by Mr. +Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—Believe +me, speaking to you with a most disastrous cold, which makes my +own voice sound very strangely in my ears—that if I were +not gratified and honoured beyond expression by your cordial +welcome, I should have considered the invitation to occupy my +present position in this brilliant assemblage in itself a +distinction not easy to be surpassed. The cause in which we +are assembled and the objects we are met to promote, I take, and +always have taken to be, <i>the</i> cause and <i>the</i> objects +involving almost all others that are essential to the welfare and +happiness of mankind. And in a celebration like the +present, commemorating the birth and progress of a great +educational establishment, I recognise a something, not limited +to the spectacle of the moment, beautiful and radiant though it +be—not limited even to the success of the particular +establishment in which we are more immediately +interested—but extending from this place and through swarms +of toiling men elsewhere, cheering and stimulating them in the +onward, upward path that lies before us all. Wherever +hammers beat, or wherever factory chimneys smoke, wherever hands +are busy, or the clanking of machinery resounds—wherever, +in a word, there are masses of industrious human beings whom +their wise Creator did not see fit to constitute all body, but +into each and every one of whom He breathed a mind—there, I +would fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is +felt from our collective pulse now beating in this Hall.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at the +report of your Institution for the present year sent to me by +your respected President—whom I cannot help feeling it, +by-the-bye, a kind of crime to depose, even thus peacefully, and +for so short a time—I say, glancing over this report, I +found one statement of fact in the very opening which gave me an +uncommon satisfaction. It is, that a great number of the +members and subscribers are among that class of persons for whose +advantage Mechanics’ Institutions were originated, namely, +persons receiving weekly wages. This circumstance gives me +the greatest delight. I am sure that no better testimony +could be borne to the merits and usefulness of this Institution, +and that no better guarantee could be given for its continued +prosperity and advancement.</p> +<p>To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, there may +yet reappear now and then the spectral shadow of a certain dead +and buried opposition; but before the light of a steady trust in +them on the part of the general people, bearing testimony to the +virtuous influences of such Institutions by their own +intelligence and conduct, the ghost will melt away like early +vapour from the ground. Fear of such Institutions as +these! We have heard people sometimes speak with jealousy +of them,—with distrust of them! Imagine here, on +either hand, two great towns like Leeds, full of busy men, all of +them feeling necessarily, and some of them heavily, the burdens +and inequalities inseparable from civilized society. In +this town there is ignorance, dense and dark; in that town, +education—the best of education; that which the grown man +from day to day and year to year furnishes for himself and +maintains for himself, and in right of which his education goes +on all his life, instead of leaving off, complacently, just when +he begins to live in the social system. Now, which of these +two towns has a good man, or a good cause, reason to distrust and +dread? “The educated one,” does some timid +politician, with a marvellously weak sight, say (as I have heard +such politicians say), “because knowledge is power, and +because it won’t do to have too much power +abroad.” Why, ladies and gentlemen, reflect whether +ignorance be not power, and a very dreadful power. Look +where we will, do we not find it powerful for every kind of wrong +and evil? Powerful to take its enemies to its heart, and +strike its best friends down—powerful to fill the prisons, +the hospitals, and the graves—powerful for blind violence, +prejudice, and error, in all their gloomy and destructive +shapes. Whereas the power of knowledge, if I understand it, +is, to bear and forbear; to learn the path of duty and to tread +it; to engender that self-respect which does not stop at self, +but cherishes the best respect for the best objects—to turn +an always enlarging acquaintance with the joys and sorrows, +capabilities and imperfections of our race to daily account in +mildness of life and gentleness of construction and humble +efforts for the improvement, stone by stone, of the whole social +fabric.</p> +<p>I never heard but one tangible position taken against +educational establishments for the people, and that was, that in +this or that instance, or in these or those instances, education +for the people has failed. And I have never traced even +this to its source but I have found that the term education, so +employed, meant anything but education—implied the mere +imperfect application of old, ignorant, preposterous +spelling-book lessons to the meanest purposes—as if you +should teach a child that there is no higher end in electricity, +for example, than expressly to strike a mutton-pie out of the +hand of a greedy boy—and on which it is as unreasonable to +found an objection to education in a comprehensive sense, as it +would be to object altogether to the combing of youthful hair, +because in a certain charity school they had a practice of +combing it into the pupils’ eyes.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of this +Institution, on whose behalf we are met; and I start with the +education given there, and I find that it really is an education +that is deserving of the name. I find that there are papers +read and lectures delivered, on a variety of subjects of interest +and importance. I find that there are evening classes +formed for the acquisition of sound, useful English information, +and for the study of those two important languages, daily +becoming more important in the business of life,—the French +and German. I find that there is a class for drawing, a +chemical class, subdivided into the elementary branch and the +manufacturing branch, most important here. I find that +there is a day-school at twelve shillings a quarter, which small +cost, besides including instruction in all that is useful to the +merchant and the man of business, admits to all the advantages of +the parent institution. I find that there is a School of +Design established in connexion with the Government School; and +that there was in January this year, a library of between six and +seven thousand books. Ladies and gentlemen, if any man +would tell me that anything but good could come of such knowledge +as this, all I can say is, that I should consider him a new and +most lamentable proof of the necessity of such institutions, and +should regard him in his own person as a melancholy instance of +what a man may come to by never having belonged to one or +sympathized with one.</p> +<p>There is one other paragraph in this report which struck my +eye in looking over it, and on which I cannot help offering a +word of joyful notice. It is the steady increase that +appears to have taken place in the number of lady +members—among whom I hope I may presume are included some +of the bright fair faces that are clustered around me. +Gentlemen, I hold that it is not good for man to be +alone—even in Mechanics’ Institutions; and I rank it +as very far from among the last or least of the merits of such +places, that he need not be alone there, and that he is +not. I believe that the sympathy and society of those who +are our best and dearest friends in infancy, in childhood, in +manhood, and in old age, the most devoted and least selfish +natures that we know on earth, who turn to us always constant and +unchanged, when others turn away, should greet us here, if +anywhere, and go on with us side by side.</p> +<p>I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own proper senses at +this moment, that there are charms and graces in such greetings, +such as no other greeting can possess. I know that in every +beautiful work of the Almighty hand, which is illustrated in your +lectures, and in every real or ideal portraiture of fortitude and +goodness that you find in your books, there is something that +must bring you home again to them for its brightest and best +example. And therefore, gentlemen, I hope that you will +never be without them, or without an increasing number of them in +your studies and your commemorations; and that an immense number +of new marriages, and other domestic festivals naturally +consequent upon those marriages, may be traced back from time to +time to the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution.</p> +<p>There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their +public position and service, or endeared to you by frequent +intercourse, or by their zealous efforts on behalf of the cause +which brings us together; and to them I shall beg leave to refer +you for further observations on this happy and interesting +occasion; begging to congratulate you finally upon the occasion +itself; upon the prosperity and thriving prospects of your +institution; and upon our common and general good fortune in +living in these times, when the means of mental culture and +improvement are presented cheaply, socially, and cheerfully, and +not in dismal cells or lonely garrets. And lastly, I +congratulate myself, I assure you most heartily, upon the part +with which I am honoured on an occasion so congenial to my +warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank you for such +evidences of your good-will, as I never can coldly remember and +never forget.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens +said:—]</p> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen,—It is a great satisfaction to me +that this question has been put by the Mayor, inasmuch as I hope +I may receive it as a token that he has forgiven me those +extremely large letters, which I must say, from the glimpse I +caught of them when I arrived in the town, looked like a leaf +from the first primer of a very promising young giant.</p> +<p>I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of this +evening, that after what I have seen, and the excellent speeches +I have heard from gentlemen of so many different callings and +persuasions, meeting here as on neutral ground, I do more +strongly and sincerely believe than I ever have in my +life,—and that is saying a great deal,—that +institutions such as this will be the means of refining and +improving that social edifice which has been so often mentioned +to-night, until,—unlike that Babel tower that would have +taken heaven by storm,—it shall end in sweet accord and +harmony amongst all classes of its builders.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily I bid you +good night and good-bye, and I trust the next time we meet it +will be in even greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that +we often shall meet again, to recal this evening, then of the +past, and remember it as one of a series of increasing triumphs +of your excellent institution.</p> +<h2><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>XLVI.<br /> +GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The first Soirée, commemorative of the +opening of the Glasgow Athenæum took place on the above +evening in the City Hall. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, and +made the following speech:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and Gentlemen</span>—Let me +begin by endeavouring to convey to you the assurance that not +even the warmth of your reception can possibly exceed, in simple +earnestness, the cordiality of the feeling with which I come +amongst you. This beautiful scene and your generous +greeting would naturally awaken, under any circumstances, no +common feeling within me; but when I connect them with the high +purpose of this brilliant assembly—when I regard it as an +educational example and encouragement to the rest of +Scotland—when I regard it no less as a recognition on the +part of everybody here of the right, indisputable and +inalienable, of all those who are actively engaged in the work +and business of life to elevate and improve themselves so far as +in them lies, by all good means—I feel as if I stand here +to swear brotherhood to all the young men in Glasgow;—and I +may say to all the young women in Glasgow; being unfortunately in +no position to take any tenderer vows upon myself—and as if +we were pledged from this time henceforth to make common cause +together in one of the most laudable and worthy of human +objects.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a +design as that which brings us together this night; for without +it, nothing can be done, but with it, everything. It is a +common cause of right, God knows; for it is idle to suppose that +the advantages of such an institution as the Glasgow +Athenæum will stop within its own walls or be confined to +its own members. Through all the society of this great and +important city, upwards to the highest and downwards to the +lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good. Downward in a +clearer perception of, and sympathy with, those social miseries +which can be alleviated, and those wide-open doors to vice and +crime that can be shut and barred; and upward in a greater +intelligence, increased efficiency, and higher knowledge, of all +who partake of its benefits themselves, or who communicate, as +all must do, in a greater or less degree, some portion to the +circle of relatives or friends in which they move.</p> +<p>Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however +high his social position, or however great his attainments, that +he might not find something to be learnt even from immediate +contact with such institutions. If he only saw the goddess +Knowledge coming out of her secluded palaces and high places to +mingle with the throng, and to give them shining glimpses of the +delights which were long kept hoarded up, he might learn +something. If he only saw the energy and the courage with +which those who earn their daily bread by the labour of their +hands or heads, come night after night, as to a recreation, to +that which was, perhaps, the whole absorbing business of his +youth, there might still be something very wholesome for him to +learn. But when he could see in such places their genial +and reviving influences, their substituting of the contemplation +of the beauties of nature and art, and of the wisdom of great +men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid idleness—at any +rate he would learn this—that it is at once the duty and +the interest of all good members of society to encourage and +protect them.</p> +<p>I took occasion to say at an Athenæum in Yorkshire a few +weeks since, <a name="citation274"></a><a href="#footnote274" +class="citation">[274]</a> and I think it a point most important +to be borne in mind on such commemorations as these, that when +such societies are objected to, or are decried on the ground that +in the views of the objectors, education among the people has not +succeeded, the term education is used with not the least +reference to its real meaning, and is wholly misunderstood. +Mere reading and writing is not education; it would be quite as +reasonable to call bricks and mortar architecture—oils and +colours art—reeds and cat-gut music—or the +child’s spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or +Bacon—as to call the lowest rudiments of education, +education, and to visit on that most abused and slandered word +their failure in any instance; and precisely because they were +not education; because, generally speaking, the word has been +understood in that sense a great deal too long; because education +for the business of life, and for the due cultivation of domestic +virtues, is at least as important from day to day to the grown +person as to the child; because real education, in the strife and +contention for a livelihood, and the consequent necessity +incumbent on a great number of young persons to go into the world +when they are very young, is extremely difficult. It is +because of these things that I look upon mechanics’ +institutions and athenæums as vitally important to the +well-being of society. It is because the rudiments of +education may there be turned to good account in the acquisition +of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith, and +charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, +I take it, that you have met in education’s name +to-night.</p> +<p>It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in +behalf of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, +of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem +myself singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in +the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its +prime, and when it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was +a friend of its youth. It has already passed through some +of the disorders to which children are liable; it succeeded to an +elder brother of a very meritorious character, but of rather a +weak constitution, and which expired when about twelve months +old, from, it is said, a destructive habit of getting up early in +the morning: it succeeded this elder brother, and has fought +manfully through a sea of troubles. Its friends have often +been much concerned for it; its pulse has been exceedingly low, +being only 1250, when it was expected to have been 10,000; +several relations and friends have even gone so far as to walk +off once or twice in the melancholy belief that it was +dead. Through all that, assisted by the indomitable energy +of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be sufficiently +grateful, it came triumphantly, and now, of all the youthful +members of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest attitude, +the healthiest look, the brightest and most cheerful air. I +find the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a reading-room, +a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with lectures given and +in progress, in sound, useful and well-selected subjects; I find +it with morning and evening classes for mathematics, logic, +grammar, music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by +upwards of five hundred persons; but, best and first of all and +what is to me more satisfactory than anything else in the history +of the institution, I find that all, this has been mainly +achieved by the young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little +assistance. And, ladies and gentlemen, as the axiom, +“Heaven helps those who help themselves,” is truer in +no case than it is in this, I look to the young men of Glasgow, +from such a past and such a present, to a noble future. +Everything that has been done in any other athenæum, I +confidently expect to see done here; and when that shall be the +case, and when there shall be great cheap schools in connexion +with the institution, and when it has bound together for ever all +its friends, and brought over to itself all those who look upon +it as an objectionable institution,—then, and not till +then, I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their +labours, and think their study done.</p> +<p>If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement +in this wise, they have one beside them in the presence of their +fair townswomen, which is irresistible. It is a most +delightful circumstance to me, and one fraught with inestimable +benefits to institutions of this kind, that at a meeting of this +nature those who in all things are our best examples, +encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. The abstract +idea of the Graces was in ancient times associated with those +arts which refine the human understanding; and it is pleasant to +see now, in the rolling of the world, the Graces popularising the +practice of those arts by their example, and adorning it with +their presence.</p> +<p>I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenæum there is +a peculiar bond of union between the institution and the fairest +part of creation. I understand that the necessary addition +to the small library of books being difficult and expensive to +make, the ladies have generally resolved to hold a fancy bazaar, +and to devote the proceeds to this admirable purpose; and I learn +with no less pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in a graceful +and womanly sense of the excellence of this design, has consented +that the bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. I +can only say, that if you do not find something very noble in +your books after this, you are much duller students than I take +you to be. The ladies—the single ladies, at +least—however disinterested I know they are by sex and +nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of the advantages of +these books, by never marrying any but members of the +Athenæum. It seems to me it ought to be the +pleasantest library in the world.</p> +<p>Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of +some familiar writer of fiction, “How long since I first +became acquainted with these characters; what old-fashioned +friends they seem; and yet I am not tired of them like so many +other friends, nor they of me.” In this case the +books will not only possess all the attractions of their own +friendships and charms, but also the manifold—I may say +womanfold—associations connected with their donors. I +can imagine how, in fact, from these fanciful associations, some +fair Glasgow widow may be taken for the remoter one whom Sir +Roger de Coverley could not forget; I can imagine how +Sophia’s muff may be seen and loved, but not by Tom Jones, +going down the High Street on any winter day; or I can imagine +the student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart of +the Glasgow Athenæum, and taking into consideration the +history of Europe without the consent of Sheriff Alison. I +can imagine, in short, how through all the facts and fictions of +this library, these ladies will be always active, and that</p> +<blockquote><p>“Age will not wither them, nor custom +stale<br /> +Their infinite variety.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, +that this meeting has been held at this genial season of the +year, when a new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when +we celebrate the birth of that divine and blessed Teacher, who +took the highest knowledge into the humblest places, and whose +great system comprehended all mankind. I hail it as a most +auspicious omen, at this time of the year, when many scattered +friends and families are re-assembled, for the members of this +institution to be calling men together from all quarters, with a +brotherly view to the general good, and a view to the general +improvement; as I consider that such designs are practically +worthy of the faith we hold, and a practical remembrance of the +words, “On earth peace, and good will toward +men.” I hope that every year which dawns on your +Institution, will find it richer in its means of usefulness, and +grayer-headed in the honour and respect it has gained. It +can hardly speak for itself more appropriately than in the words +of an English writer, when contemplating the English emblem of +this period of the year, the holly-tree:—</p> +<p>[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of +Southey’s poem, <i>The Holly Tree</i>.]</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>[In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald +(then Mr.) Alison, Mr. Dickens said:]</p> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen,—I am no stranger—and I say +it with the deepest gratitude—to the warmth of Scottish +hearts; but the warmth of your present welcome almost deprives me +of any hope of acknowledging it. I will not detain you any +longer at this late hour; let it suffice to assure you, that for +taking the part with which I have been honoured in this festival, +I have been repaid a thousand-fold by your abundant kindness, and +by the unspeakable gratification it has afforded me. I hope +that, before many years are past, we may have another meeting in +public, when we shall rejoice at the immense progress your +institution will have made in the meantime, and look back upon +this night with new pleasure and satisfaction. I shall now, +in conclusion, repeat most heartily and fervently the quotation +of Dr. Ewing, the late Provost of Glasgow, which Bailie Nicol +Jarvie, himself “a Glasgow body,” observed was +“elegantly putten round the town’s arms.”</p> +<h2><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>XLVII.<br /> +LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General +Theatrical Fund was held at the London Tavern on the above +date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied the chair, and in giving +the toast of the evening said:—]</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> so often had the +satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in this place, to the +usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose behalf we are +assembled, that I should be really sensible of the disadvantage +of having now nothing to say in proposing the toast you all +anticipate, if I were not well assured that there is really +nothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you on the +old grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could render those grounds +of greater weight than they have hitherto successfully proved to +you.</p> +<p>Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many +other public societies and endowments, is represented by no +building, whether of stone, or brick, or glass, like that +astonishing evidence of the skill and energy of my friend Mr. +Paxton, which all the world is now called upon to admire, and the +great merit of which, as you learn from the best authorities, is, +that it ought to have fallen down long before it was built, and +yet that it would by no means consent to doing so—although, +I say, this Association possesses no architectural home, it is +nevertheless as plain a fact, rests on as solid a foundation, and +carries as erect a front, as any building, in the world. +And the best and the utmost that its exponent and its advocate +can do, standing here, is to point it out to those who gather +round it, and to say, “judge for yourselves.”</p> +<p>It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that +portion of the company whose previous acquaintance with it may +have been limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical +association whose benefits are confined to a small and exclusive +body of actors. It is a society whose claims are always +preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is +not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical +things entirely past and gone, and no more suited to present +theatrical requirements than a string of pack-horses would be +suited to the conveyance of traffic between London and +Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentleman, with the gout +in his vitals, brushed and got-up once a year to look as vigorous +as possible, and brought out for a public airing by the few +survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who afterwards +double-lock the street-door upon the poor relations. It is +not a theatrical association which insists that no actor can +share its bounty who has not walked so many years on those boards +where the English tongue is never heard—between the little +bars of music in an aviary of singing birds, to which the +unwieldy Swan of Avon is never admitted—that bounty which +was gathered in the name and for the elevation of an +all-embracing art.</p> +<p>No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that +kind. This is a theatrical association, expressly adapted +to the wants and to the means of the whole theatrical profession +all over England. It is a society in which the word +exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which +includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or Hamlet, or the +Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in the one +person, the whole King’s army. He may do the +“light business,” or the “heavy,” or the +comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts +the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in +dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his +time. Or he may be the young lady’s brother in the +white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears +to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, +and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. +Or he may be the baron who gives the fête, and who sits +uneasily on the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the +fête is going on. Or he may be the peasant at the +fête who comes on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, +and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass upside down +before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be the clown +who takes away the doorstep of the house where the evening party +is going on. Or he may be the gentleman who issues out of +the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the +area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy +who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional visit +to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head +of the witch’s cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, +concerning whom I have observed in country places, that he is +much less like the notion formed from the description of Hopkins +than the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes. This +society, in short, says, “Be you what you may, be you actor +or actress, be your path in your profession never so high, or +never so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you +the means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your +brethren.”</p> +<p>This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing +to a class of men to take care of their own interests, and giving +a continuous security only in return for a continuous sacrifice +and effort. The actor by the means of this society obtains +his own right, to no man’s wrong; and when, in old age, or +in disastrous times, he makes his claim on the institution, he is +enabled to say, “I am neither a beggar, nor a +suppliant. I am but reaping what I sowed long +ago.” And therefore it is that I cannot hold out to +you that in assisting this fund you are doing an act of charity +in the common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses +of that much abused term, none have more raised my indignation +than what I have heard in this room in past times, in reference +to this institution. I say, if you help this institution +you will be helping the wagoner who has resolutely put his own +shoulder to the wheel, and who has <i>not</i> stuck idle in the +mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an act of +justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this +is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who +are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend +to entreat from you an act of charity.</p> +<p>I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own +heart, and confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments +for the actor’s art? Not peculiarly because it is a +profession often pursued, and as it were marked, by poverty and +misfortune—for other callings, God knows, have their +distresses—nor because the actor has sometimes to come from +scenes of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death itself, to +play his part before us—for all of us, in our spheres, have +as often to do violence to our feelings and to hide our hearts in +fighting this great battle of life, and in discharging our duties +and responsibilities. But the art of the actor excites +reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous, which we are +all familiar with. If any man were to tell me that he +denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to +him one question—whether he remembered his first play?</p> +<p>If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to +that great night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world +which then opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear +favourably of the effect upon your liberality on this occasion +from our Secretary.</p> +<p>This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind—the +sixth time we have had this fine child down after dinner. +His nurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, who has +an excellent character from several places, will presently report +to you that his chest is perfectly sound, and that his general +health is in the most thriving condition. Long may it be +so; long may it thrive and grow; long may we meet (it is my +sincere wish) to exchange our congratulations on its prosperity; +and longer than the line of Banquo may be that line of figures +which, as its patriotic share in the national debt, a century +hence shall be stated by the Governor and Company of the Bank of +England.</p> +<h2><a name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +284</span>XLVIII.<br /> +THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND.<br /> +LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund +was established in 1790, its object being to administer +assistance to authors of genius and learning, who may be reduced +to distress by unavoidable calamities, or deprived, by enfeebled +faculties or declining life, of the power of literary +exertion. At the annual general meeting held at the house +of the society on the above date, the following speech was made +by Mr. Charles Dickens:]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I shall not attempt to +follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in the profession of literature, +represents upon this committee a separate and distinct branch of +the profession, that, like</p> +<blockquote><p>“The last rose of summer<br /> +Stands blooming alone,<br /> +While all its companions<br /> +Are faded and gone,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>into the very prickly bramble-bush with which he has +ingeniously contrived to beset this question. In the +remarks I have to make I shall confine myself to four +points:—1. That the committee find themselves in the +painful condition of not spending enough money, and will +presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending +more. 2. That with regard to the house, it is a positive +matter of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so +anxious was to be applied to uses to which it never has been +applied, and which the administrators of the fund decline to +recognise. 3. That, in Mr. Bell’s endeavours to +remove the Artists’ Fund from the ground of analogy it +unquestionably occupies with reference to this fund, by reason of +their continuing periodical relief to the same persons, I beg to +tell Mr. Bell what every gentleman at that table knows—that +it is the business of this fund to relieve over and over again +the same people.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Bell</span>: But fresh inquiry is +always made first.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. C. Dickens</span>: I can only oppose +to that statement my own experience when I sat on that committee, +and when I have known persons relieved on many consecutive +occasions without further inquiry being made. As to the +suggestion that we should select the items of expenditure that we +complain of, I think it is according to all experience that we +should first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too +large. If that be done by the meeting, then I will proceed +to the selection of the separate items. Now, in rising to +support this resolution, I may state at once that I have scarcely +any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy to think it +will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of the +resolution’s case that it should not be carried, because it +will show the determination of the fund’s managers. +Nothing can possibly be stronger in favour of the resolution than +that the statement should go forth to the world that twice within +twelve months the attention of the committee has been called to +this great expenditure, and twice the committee have considered +that it was not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger +case for the resolution than this statement of fact as to the +expenditure going forth to the public accompanied by the +committee’s assertion that it is reasonable. Now, to +separate this question from details, let us remember what the +committee and their supporters asserted last year, and, I hope, +will re-assert this year. It seems to be rather the model +kind of thing than otherwise now that if you get £100 you +are to spend £40 in management; and if you get £1000, +of course you may spend £400 in giving the rest away. +Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned people here who +may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I +will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly +respectable place of resort, Willis’s Rooms, in St. +James’s, to a meeting of this fund. My original +intention was to hear all I could, and say as little as +possible. Allowing for the absence of the younger and +fairer portion of the creation, the general appearance of the +place was something like Almack’s in the morning. A +number of stately old dowagers sat in a row on one side, and old +gentlemen on the other. The ball was opened with due +solemnity by a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the +secretary, at which the audience were much affected. Then +another party advanced, who, I am sorry to say, was only a member +of the House of Commons, and he took possession of the +floor. To him, however, succeeded a lord, then a bishop, +then the son of a distinguished lord, then one or two celebrities +from the City and Stock Exchange, and at last a gentleman, who +made a fortune by the success of “Candide,” sustained +the part of Pangloss, and spoke much of what he evidently +believed to be the very best management of this best of all +possible funds. Now it is in this fondness for being +stupendously genteel, and keeping up fine appearances—this +vulgar and common social vice of hanging on to great connexions +at any price, that the money goes. The last time you got a +distinguished writer at a public meeting, and he was called on to +address you somewhere amongst the small hours, he told you he +felt like the man in plush who was permitted to sweep the stage +down after all the other people had gone. If the founder of +this society were here, I should think he would feel like a sort +of Rip van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a +hundred years and woke up to find his fund still lying under the +feet of people who did nothing for it instead of being +emancipated and standing alone long ago. This Bloomsbury +house is another part of the same desire for show, and the +officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his +official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect +him.) When one enters the house it appears to be haunted by +a series of mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide about engaged in +some extraordinary occupation, and, after the approved fashion of +ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. +What are all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As +for the authors, I say, as a writer by profession, that the long +inquiry said to be necessary to ascertain whether an applicant +deserves relief, is a preposterous pretence, and that working +literary men would have a far better knowledge of the cases +coming before the board than can ever be attained by that +committee. Further, I say openly and plainly, that this +fund is pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, +instead of being quietly administered at small expense; and that +the secrecy to which it lays claim as its greatest attribute, is +not kept; for through those “two respectable +householders,” to whom reference must be made, the names of +the most deserving applicants are to numbers of people perfectly +well known. The members have now got before them a plain +statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say +whether they are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg +most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who +belong to this institution, that must now decide, and cannot help +deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not +for. The question raised by the resolution is whether this +is a public corporation for the relief of men of genius and +learning, or whether it is a snug, traditional, and conventional +party, bent upon maintaining its own usages with a vast amount of +pride; upon its own annual puffery at costly dinner-tables, and +upon a course of expensive toadying to a number of distinguished +individuals. This is the question which you cannot this day +escape.</p> +<h2><a name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +290</span>XLIX.<br /> +LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the +Warehousemen and Clerks Schools, which took place on Thursday +evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at the London Tavern, and was very +numerously attended, Mr. Charles Dickens occupied the +chair. On the subject which had brought the company +together Mr. Dickens spoke as follows:—]</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">must</span> now solicit your attention +for a few minutes to the cause of your assembling +together—the main and real object of this evening’s +gathering; for I suppose we are all agreed that the motto of +these tables is not “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we +die;” but, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we +live.” It is because a great and good work is to live +to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to live a greater +and better life with every succeeding to-morrow, that we eat and +drink here at all. Conspicuous on the card of admission to +this dinner is the word “Schools.” This set me +thinking this morning what are the sorts of schools that I +don’t like. I found them on consideration, to be +rather numerous. I don’t like to begin with, and to +begin as charity does at home—I don’t like the sort +of school to which I once went myself—the respected +proprietor of which was by far the most ignorant man I have ever +had the pleasure to know; one of the worst-tempered men perhaps +that ever lived, whose business it was to make as much out of us +and put as little into us as possible, and who sold us at a +figure which I remember we used to delight to estimate, as +amounting to exactly £2 4s. 6d. per head. I +don’t like that sort of school, because I don’t see +what business the master had to be at the top of it instead of +the bottom, and because I never could understand the +wholesomeness of the moral preached by the abject appearance and +degraded condition of the teachers who plainly said to us by +their looks every day of their lives, “Boys, never be +learned; whatever you are, above all things be warned from that +in time by our sunken cheeks, by our poor pimply noses, by our +meagre diet, by our acid-beer, and by our extraordinary suits of +clothes, of which no human being can say whether they are +snuff-coloured turned black, or black turned snuff-coloured, a +point upon which we ourselves are perfectly unable to offer any +ray of enlightenment, it is so very long since they were undarned +and new.” I do not like that sort of school, because +I have never yet lost my ancient suspicion touching that curious +coincidence that the boy with four brothers to come always got +the prizes. In fact, and short, I do not like that sort of +school, which is a pernicious and abominable humbug, +altogether. Again, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t like +that sort of school—a ladies’ school—with which +the other school used to dance on Wednesdays, where the young +ladies, as I look back upon them now, seem to me always to have +been in new stays and disgrace—the latter concerning a +place of which I know nothing at this day, that bounds Timbuctoo +on the north-east—and where memory always depicts the +youthful enthraller of my first affection as for ever standing +against a wall, in a curious machine of wood, which confined her +innocent feet in the first dancing position, while those arms, +which should have encircled my jacket, those precious arms, I +say, were pinioned behind her by an instrument of torture called +a backboard, fixed in the manner of a double direction +post. Again, I don’t like that sort of school, of +which we have a notable example in Kent, which was established +ages ago by worthy scholars and good men long deceased, whose +munificent endowments have been monstrously perverted from their +original purpose, and which, in their distorted condition, are +struggled for and fought over with the most indecent +pertinacity. Again, I don’t like that sort of +school—and I have seen a great many such in these latter +times—where the bright childish imagination is utterly +discouraged, and where those bright childish faces, which it is +so very good for the wisest among us to remember in after +life—when the world is too much with us, early and late <a +name="citation292"></a><a href="#footnote292" +class="citation">[292]</a>—are gloomily and grimly scared +out of countenance; where I have never seen among the pupils, +whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots and small +calculating machines. Again, I don’t by any means +like schools in leather breeches, and with mortified straw +baskets for bonnets, which file along the streets in long +melancholy rows under the escort of that surprising British +monster—a beadle, whose system of instruction, I am afraid, +too often presents that happy union of sound with sense, of which +a very remarkable instance is given in a grave report of a +trustworthy school inspector, to the effect that a boy in great +repute at school for his learning, presented on his slate, as one +of the ten commandments, the perplexing prohibition, “Thou +shalt not commit doldrum.” Ladies and gentlemen, I +confess, also, that I don’t like those schools, even though +the instruction given in them be gratuitous, where those sweet +little voices which ought to be heard speaking in very different +accents, anathematise by rote any human being who does not hold +what is taught there. Lastly, I do not like, and I did not +like some years ago, cheap distant schools, where neglected +children pine from year to year under an amount of neglect, want, +and youthful misery far too sad even to be glanced at in this +cheerful assembly.</p> +<p>And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permit me to +sketch in a few words the sort of school that I do like. It +is a school established by the members of an industrious and +useful order, which supplies the comforts and graces of life at +every familiar turning in the road of our existence; it is a +school established by them for the Orphan and Necessitous +Children of their own brethren and sisterhood; it is a place +giving an education worthy of them—an education by them +invented, by them conducted, by them watched over; it is a place +of education where, while the beautiful history of the Christian +religion is daily taught, and while the life of that Divine +Teacher who Himself took little children on His knees is daily +studied, no sectarian ill-will nor narrow human dogma is +permitted to darken the face of the clear heaven which they +disclose. It is a children’s school, which is at the +same time no less a children’s home, a home not to be +confided to the care of cold or ignorant strangers, nor, by the +nature of its foundation, in the course of ages to pass into +hands that have as much natural right to deal with it as with the +peaks of the highest mountains or with the depths of the sea, but +to be from generation to generation administered by men living in +precisely such homes as those poor children have lost; by men +always bent upon making that replacement, such a home as their +own dear children might find a happy refuge in if they themselves +were taken early away. And I fearlessly ask you, is this a +design which has any claim to your sympathy? Is this a sort +of school which is deserving of your support?</p> +<p>This is the design, this is the school, whose strong and +simple claim I have to lay before you to-night. I must +particularly entreat you not to suppose that my fancy and +unfortunate habit of fiction has anything to do with the picture +I have just presented to you. It is sober matter of +fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks’ Schools, +established for the maintaining, clothing, and educating of the +Orphan and Necessitous Children of those employed in the +wholesale trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom, are, in +fact, what I have just described. These schools for both +sexes were originated only four years ago. In the first six +weeks of the undertaking the young men of themselves and quite +unaided, subscribed the large sum of £3,000. The +schools have been opened only three years, they have now on their +foundation thirty-nine children, and in a few days they will have +six more, making a total of forty-five. They have been most +munificently assisted by the heads of great mercantile houses, +numerously represented, I am happy to say, around me, and they +have a funded capital of almost £14,000. This is +wonderful progress, but the aim must still be upwards, the motto +always “Excelsior.” You do not need to be told +that five-and-forty children can form but a very small proportion +of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those who have been +entrusted with the wholesale trades and manufactures of the +United Kingdom: you do not require to be informed that the house +at New-cross, rented for a small term of years, in which the +schools are at present established, can afford but most imperfect +accommodation for such a breadth of design. To carry this +good work through the two remaining degrees of better and best +there must be more work, more co-operation, more friends, more +money. Then be the friends and give the money. Before +I conclude, there is one other feature in these schools which I +would commend to your special attention and approval. Their +benefits are reserved for the children of subscribers; that is to +say, it is an essential principle of the institution that it must +help those whose parents have helped them, and that the +unfortunate children whose father has been so lax, or so +criminal, as to withhold a subscription so exceedingly small that +when divided by weeks it amounts to only threepence weekly, +cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle out and shoulder away +the happier children, whose father has had that little +forethought, or done that little kindness which was requisite to +secure for them the benefits of the institution. I really +cannot believe that there will long be any such defaulting +parents. I cannot believe that any of the intelligent young +men who are engaged in the wholesale houses will long neglect +this obvious, this easy duty. If they suppose that the +objects of their love, born or unborn, will never want the +benefits of the charity, that may be a fatal and blind +mistake—it can never be an excuse, for, supposing them to +be right in their anticipation, they should do what is asked for +the sake of their friends and comrades around them, assured that +they will be the happier and the better for the deed.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, this little “labour of love” +of mine is now done. I most heartily wish that I could +charm you now not to see me, not to think of me, not to hear +me—I most heartily wish that I could make you see in my +stead the multitude of innocent and bereaved children who are +looking towards these schools, and entreating with uplifted hands +to be let in. A very famous advocate once said, in speaking +of his fears of failure when he had first to speak in court, +being very poor, that he felt his little children tugging at his +skirts, and that recovered him. Will you think of the +number of little children who are tugging at my skirts, when I +ask you, in their names, on their behalf, and in their little +persons, and in no strength of my own, to encourage and assist +this work?</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposed the +health of the President of the Institution, Lord John +Russell. He said he should do nothing so superfluous and so +unnecessary as to descant upon his lordship’s many +faithful, long, and great public services, upon the honour and +integrity with which he had pursued his straightforward public +course through every difficulty, or upon the manly, gallant, and +courageous character, which rendered him certain, in the eyes +alike of friends and opponents, to rise with every rising +occasion, and which, like the seal of Solomon, in the old Arabian +story, enclosed in a not very large casket the soul of a +giant. In answer to loud cheers, he said he had felt +perfectly certain, that that would be the response for in no +English assembly that he had ever seen was it necessary to do +more than mention the name of Lord John Russell to ensure a +manifestation of personal respect and grateful remembrance.</p> +<h2><a name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +297</span>L.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 8, 1858.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The forty-eighth Anniversary of the +establishment of the Artists’ Benevolent Fund took place on +the above date at the Freemasons’ Tavern. The chair +was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after having disposed of +the preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, proceeded to +advocate the claims of the Institution in whose interest the +company had assembled, in the following terms:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—There +is an absurd theatrical story which was once told to me by a dear +and valued friend, who has now passed from this sublunary stage, +and which is not without its moral as applied to myself, in my +present presidential position. In a certain theatrical +company was included a man, who on occasions of emergency was +capable of taking part in the whole round of the British drama, +provided he was allowed to use his own language in getting +through the dialogue. It happened one night that Reginald, +in the <i>Castle Spectre</i>, was taken ill, and this veteran of +a hundred characters was, of course, called up for the vacant +part. He responded with his usual promptitude, although +knowing nothing whatever of the character, but while they were +getting him into the dress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish +to know in some vague way what the part was about. He was +not particular as to details, but in order that he might properly +pourtray his sufferings, he thought he should have some slight +inkling as to what really had happened to him. As, for +example, what murders he had committed, whose father he was, of +what misfortunes he was the victim,—in short, in a general +way to know why he was in that place at all. They said to +him, “Here you are, chained in a dungeon, an unhappy +father; you have been here for seventeen years, during which time +you have never seen your daughter; you have lived upon bread and +water, and, in consequence, are extremely weak, and suffer from +occasional lowness of spirits.”—“All +right,” said the actor of universal capabilities, +“ring up.” When he was discovered to the +audience, he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was +very favourably received, and gave every sign of going on well, +until, through some mental confusion as to his instructions, he +opened the business of the act by stating in pathetic terms, that +he had been confined in that dungeon seventeen years, during +which time he had not tasted a morsel of food, to which +circumstance he was inclined to attribute the fact of his being +at that moment very much out of condition. The audience, +thinking this statement exceedingly improbable, declined to +receive it, and the weight of that speech hung round him until +the end of his performance.</p> +<p>Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the +honour of performing before you, and it behoves both you and me +to profit by the terrible warning I have detailed, while I +endeavour to make the part I have undertaken as plain and +intelligible as I possibly can.</p> +<p>As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to +connect the business with the pleasure of the evening, by +drinking prosperity to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, it +becomes important that we should know what that fund is. It +is an Association supported by the voluntary gifts of those who +entertain a critical and admiring estimation of art, and has for +its object the granting of annuities to the widows and children +of deceased artists—of artists who have been unable in +their lives to make any provision for those dear objects of their +love surviving themselves. Now it is extremely important to +observe that this institution of an Artists’ Benevolent +Fund, which I now call on you to pledge, has connected with it, +and has arisen out of another artists’ association, which +does not ask you for a health, which never did, and never will +ask you for a health, which is self-supporting, and which is +entirely maintained by the prudence and providence of its three +hundred artist members. That fund, which is called the +Artists’ Annuity Fund, is, so to speak, a joint and mutual +Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, and age. To +the benefits it affords every one of its members has an absolute +right, a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and +self-denial, and not assisted by appeals to the charity or +compassion of any human being. On that fund there are, if I +remember a right, some seventeen annuitants who are in the +receipt of eleven hundred a-year, the proceeds of their own +self-supporting Institution. In recommending to you this +benevolent fund, which is not self-supporting, they address you, +in effect, in these words:—“We ask you to help these +widows and orphans, because we show you we have first helped +ourselves. These widows and orphans may be ours or they may +not be ours; but in any case we will prove to you to a certainty +that we are not so many wagoners calling upon Jupiter to do our +work, because we do our own work; each has his shoulder to the +wheel; each, from year to year, has had his shoulder set to the +wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter and all the gods is +simply this—that this fact may be remembered when the wagon +has stopped for ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies +lifeless by the roadside.</p> +<p>“Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to +impress on you the strength of this appeal. I am a painter, +a sculptor, or an engraver, of average success. I study and +work here for no immense return, while life and health, while +hand and eye are mine. I prudently belong to the Annuity +Fund, which in sickness, old age, and infirmity, preserves me +from want. I do my duty to those who are depending on me +while life remains; but when the grass grows above my grave there +is no provision for them any longer.”</p> +<p>This is the case with the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, and +in stating this I am only the mouthpiece of three hundred of the +trade, who in truth stands as independent before you as if they +were three hundred Cockers all regulated by the Gospel according +to themselves. There are in existence three artists’ +funds, which ought never to be mentioned without respect. I +am an officer of one of them, and can speak from knowledge; but +on this occasion I address myself to a case for which there is no +provision. I address you on behalf of those professors of +the fine arts who have made provision during life, and in +submitting to you their claims I am only advocating principles +which I myself have always maintained.</p> +<p>When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to +gentility, squanders no treasure in keeping up appearances, that +it considers that the money given for the widow and the orphan, +should really be held for the widow and the orphan, I think I +have exhausted the case, which I desire most strenuously to +commend to you.</p> +<p>Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I will +not consent to present to you the professors of Art as a set of +helpless babies, who are to be held up by the chin; I present +them as an energetic and persevering class of men, whose incomes +depend on their own faculties and personal exertions; and I also +make so bold as to present them as men who in their vocation +render good service to the community. I am strongly +disposed to believe there are very few debates in Parliament so +important to the public welfare as a really good picture. I +have also a notion that any number of bundles of the driest legal +chaff that ever was chopped would be cheaply expended for one +really meritorious engraving. At a highly interesting +annual festival at which I have the honour to assist, and which +takes place behind two fountains, I sometimes observe that great +ministers of state and other such exalted characters have a +strange delight in rather ostentatiously declaring that they have +no knowledge whatever of art, and particularly of impressing on +the company that they have passed their lives in severe +studies. It strikes me when I hear these things as if these +great men looked upon the arts as a sort of dancing dogs, or +Punch’s show, to be turned to for amusement when one has +nothing else to do. Now I always take the opportunity on +these occasions of entertaining my humble opinion that all this +is complete “bosh;” and of asserting to myself my +strong belief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar Square, or +Suffolk Street, rightly understood, are quite as important to the +welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, or Westminster +Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and backed by +the recommendation of three hundred artists in favour of the +Benevolent Fund, I beg to propose its prosperity as a toast for +your adoption.</p> +<h2><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>LI.<br /> +THE FAREWELL READING.<br /> +ST. JAMES’S HALL, MARCH 15, 1870.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[With the “Christmas Carol” and +“The Trial from Pickwick,” Mr. Charles Dickens +brought to a brilliant close the memorable series of public +readings which have for sixteen years proved to audiences +unexampled in numbers, the source of the highest intellectual +enjoyment. Every portion of available space in the building +was, of course, last night occupied some time before the +appointed hour; but could the St. James’s Hall have been +specially enlarged for the occasion to the dimensions of +Salisbury Plain, it is doubtful whether sufficient room would +even then have been provided for all anxious to seize the last +chance of hearing the distinguished novelist give his own +interpretation of the characters called into existence by his own +creative pen. As if determined to convince his auditors +that, whatever reason had influenced his determination, physical +exhaustion was not amongst them, Mr. Dickens never read with +greater spirit and energy. His voice to the last retained +its distinctive clearness, and the transitions of tone, as each +personage in the story, conjured up by a word, rose vividly +before the eye, seemed to be more marvellous than ever. The +vast assemblage, hushed into breathless attention, suffered not a +syllable to escape the ear, and the rich humour and deep pathos +of one of the most delightful books ever written found once again +the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of merriment +responsive to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit’s +Christmas day, and the wonted sympathy with the crippled child +“Tiny Tim,” found prompt expression, and the general +delight at hearing of Ebenezer Scrooge’s reformation was +only checked by the saddening remembrance that with it the last +strain of the “carol” was dying away. After the +“Trial from Pickwick,” in which the speeches of the +opposing counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge, seemed to +be delivered and depicted with greater dramatic power than ever, +the applause of the audience rang for several minutes through the +hall, and when it had subsided, Mr. Dickens, with evidently +strong emotion, but in his usual distinct and expressive manner, +spoke as follows:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—It +would be worse than idle—for it would be hypocritical and +unfeeling—if I were to disguise that I close this episode +in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For +some fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I +have had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before +you for your recognition, and, in closely observing your +reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and +instruction which, perhaps, is given to few men to know. In +this task, and in every other I have ever undertaken, as a +faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a sense of +duty to them, and always striving to do his best, I have been +uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous +sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I +have thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, to +retire upon those older associations between us, which date from +much further back than these, and henceforth to devote myself +exclusively to the art that first brought us together. +Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time I +hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of +readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; <a +name="citation303"></a><a href="#footnote303" +class="citation">[303]</a> but from these garish lights I vanish +now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and +affectionate farewell.</p> +<p>[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic +description, whilst hats and handkerchiefs were waving in every +part of the hall, Mr. Charles Dickens retired, withdrawing with +him one of the greatest intellectual treats the public ever +enjoyed.]</p> +<h2><a name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +304</span>LII.<br /> +THE NEWSVENDORS’ INSTITUTION.<br /> +LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the +Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution was held +on the above evening, at the Freemason’s Tavern. Mr. +Charles Dickens presided, and was supported by the Sheriffs of +the City of London and Middlesex.</p> +<p class="gutsumm">After the usual toasts had been given and +responded to,</p> +<p class="gutsumm">The Chairman said that if the approved order +of their proceedings had been observed, the Corporation of the +City of London would no doubt have considered themselves snubbed +if they were not toasted by themselves. He was sure that a +distinguished member of the Corporation who was present would +tell the company what the Corporation were going to do; and he +had not the slightest doubt they were going to do something +highly creditable to themselves, and something highly serviceable +to the whole metropolis; and if the secret were not at present +locked up in the blue chamber, they would be all deeply obliged +to the gentleman who would immediately follow him, if he let them +into it in the same confidence as he had observed with respect to +the Corporation of the City of London being snubbed. He +begged to give the toast of “The Corporation of the City of +London.”</p> +<p class="gutsumm">Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, +said for once, and once only, had their chairman said an unkind +word about the Corporation of London. He had always +reckoned Mr. Dickens to be one of the warmest friends of the +Corporation; and remembering that he (Mr. Dickens) did really go +through a Lord Mayor’s Show in a Lord Mayor’s +carriage, if he had not felt himself quite a Lord Mayor, he must +have at least considered himself next to one.</p> +<p class="gutsumm">In proposing the toast of the evening Mr. +Dickens said:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and gentlemen</span>,—You +receive me with so much cordiality that I fear you believe that I +really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s state coach. +Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received +from Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour. +Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed a Lord +Mayor’s show except from the point of view obtained by the +other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, ladies and +gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if +you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you that I occupy +this chair to-night, because, having filled it on several +previous occasions for the society on whose behalf we are +assembled, and having said everything that I could think of to +say about it, and being, moreover, the president of the +institution itself, I am placed to-night in the modest position +of a host who is not so much to display himself as to call out +his guests—perhaps even to try to induce some among them to +occupy his place on another occasion. And, therefore, you +may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but with a modification +almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of +speaking in others than to speak myself to-night. Much in +this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy +of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having +apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all +the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends +and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same +line.</p> +<p>It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the +newsman’s calling that no toast we have drunk +to-night—and no toast we shall drink to-night—and no +toast we might, could, should, or would drink to-night, is +separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all possible +subjects of human interest which he delivers at our doors every +day. Further, it may be worthy the consideration of +everybody here who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour +since we have sat down at the table, what in the name of Heaven +should we have talked about, and how on earth could we have +possibly got on, if our newsman had only for one single day +forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is +not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let us try to +form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us +remember that his work is very arduous; that it occupies him +early and late; that the profits he derives from us are at the +best very small; that the services he renders to us are very +great; that if he be a master, his little capital is exposed to +all sorts of mischances, anxieties, and hazards; and if he be a +journeyman, he himself is exposed to all manner of weathers, of +tempers, and of difficult and unreasonable requirements.</p> +<p>Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social +discussion, which originated by chance. The subject was, +What was the most absorbing and longest-lived passion in the +human breast? What was the passion so powerful that it +would almost induce the generous to be mean, the careless to be +cautious, the guileless to be deeply designing, and the dove to +emulate the serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and +great acuteness, who was one of the company, considerably +surprised us by saying with the greatest confidence that the +passion in question was the passion of getting orders for the +play.</p> +<p>There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of +the surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of +these on making land came straight to London, and straight to the +newspaper office, with his story of how he had seen the ship go +down before his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most +terrible contention between the powers of fire and water for the +destruction of that ship and of every one on board. He had +rowed away among the floating, dying, and the sinking dead. +He had floated by day, and he had frozen by night, with no +shelter and no food, and, as he told his dismal tale, he rolled +his haggard eyes about the room. When he had finished, and +the tale had been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and +refreshed, and soothed, and asked if anything could be done for +him. Even within him that master passion was so strong that +he immediately replied he should like an order for the +play. My friend the editor certainly thought that was +rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of +experience he had witnessed an incurable amount of +self-prostration and abasement having no outer object, and that +almost invariably on the part of people who could well afford to +pay.</p> +<p>This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in +this faith until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I +was kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little +out-of-the-way town it represented by a sprightly and vivacious +newsman, to whom I propounded, as we went along under my +umbrella—he being most excellent company—this old +question, what was the one all-absorbing passion of the human +soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it +certainly was the passion for getting your newspaper in advance +of your fellow-creatures; also, if you only hired it, to get it +delivered at your own door at exactly the same time as another +man who hired the same copy four miles off; and, finally, the +invincible determination on the part of both men not to believe +the time was up when the boy called.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of +verifying this experience with my friends of the managing +committee, but I have no doubt from its reception to-night that +my friend the newsman was perfectly right. Well, as a sort +of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an assurance that +among a little body of working men there is a feeling of +brotherhood and sympathy—which is worth much to all men, or +they would herd with wolves—the newsvendors once upon a +time established the Benevolent and Provident Institution, and +here it is. Under the Provident head, certain small +annuities are granted to old and hard-working subscribers. +Under the Benevolent head, relief is afforded to temporary and +proved distress. Under both heads, I am bound to say the +help rendered is very humble and very sparing, but if you like it +to be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. +Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a deal of +good. Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly +administered; and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for +management or patronage.</p> +<p>You know upon an old authority, that you may believe anything +except facts and figures, but you really may believe that during +the last year we have granted £100 in pensions, and some +£70 in temporary relief, and we have invested in Government +securities some £400. But, touching this matter of +investments, it was suggested at the anniversary dinner, on the +high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips that we might +grant more pensions and invest less money. We urged, on the +other hand, that we wished our pensions to be certain and +unchangeable—which of course they must be if they are +always paid out of our Government interest and never out of our +capital. However, so amiable is our nature, that we profess +our desire to grant more pensions and to invest more money +too. The more you give us to-night again, so amiable is our +nature, the more we promise to do in both departments. That +the newsman’s work has greatly increased, and that it is +far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you may infer +from one fact, not to mention that we live in railway +times. It is stated in Mitchell’s “Newspaper +Press Directory,” that during the last quarter of a century +the number of newspapers which appeared in London had more than +doubled, while the increase in the number of people among whom +they were disseminated was probably beyond calculation.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman’s simple +case. I leave it in your hands. Within the last year +the institution has had the good fortune to attract the sympathy +and gain the support of the eminent man of letters I am proud to +call my friend, <a name="citation309"></a><a href="#footnote309" +class="citation">[309]</a> who now represents the great Republic +of America at the British Court. Also it has the honour of +enrolling upon its list of donors and vice-presidents the great +name of Longfellow. I beg to propose to you to drink +“Prosperity to the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and +Provident Institution.”</p> +<h2><a name="page310"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +310</span>LIII.<br /> +MACREADY.<br /> +LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the evening of the above day the friends +and admirers of Mr. Macready entertained him at a public +dinner. Upwards of six hundred gentlemen assembled to do +honour to the great actor on his retirement from the stage. +Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among the other speakers +were Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr. Thackeray, Mr. John +Forster, Mr. W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles Dickens, who proposed +“The Health of the Chairman” in the following +words:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,—After all you have +already heard, and so rapturously received, I assure you that not +even the warmth of your kind welcome would embolden me to hope to +interest you if I had not full confidence in the subject I have +to offer to your notice. But my reliance on the strength of +this appeal to you is so strong that I am rather encouraged than +daunted by the brightness of the track on which I have to throw +my little shadow.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites +essential to the perfect realisation of a scene so unusual and so +splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, +and I must say very difficult requisite, is a man possessing the +stronghold in the general remembrance, the indisputable claim on +the general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and +much valued friend our guest. The second requisite is the +presence of a body of entertainers,—a great multitude of +hosts so cheerful and good-humoured (under, I am sorry to say, +some personal inconvenience),—so warm-hearted and so nobly +in earnest, as those whom I have the privilege of +addressing. The third, and certainly not the least of these +requisites, is a president who, less by his social position, +which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune, which may have +been adventitiously won, and may be again accidentally lost, than +by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the best part +of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those who +unite in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have +found in our chairman of to-night, and I need scarcely add that +our chairman’s health is the toast I have to propose to +you.</p> +<p>Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that +memorable scene on Wednesday night last, <a +name="citation311"></a><a href="#footnote311" +class="citation">[311]</a> when the great vision which had been a +delight and a lesson,—very often, I daresay, a support and +a comfort to you, which had for many years improved and charmed +us, and to which we had looked for an elevated relief from the +labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will +not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked +backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remote +and distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off +likeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once +served. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a +reasonable disposition in the audience of Wednesday to seize upon +the words—</p> + +<blockquote><p> “And +I have brought,<br /> +Golden opinions from all sorts of people,<br /> +Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,<br /> +Not cast aside so soon—” <a name="citation312"></a><a +href="#footnote312" class="citation">[312]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing +how in my mind I mainly connect that occasion with the +present. When I looked round on the vast assemblage, and +observed the huge pit hushed into stillness on the rising of the +curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, where men in their +shirt-sleeves had been striking out their arms like strong +swimmers—when I saw that boisterous human flood become +still water in a moment, and remain so from the opening to the +end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the +trustworthiness of an English crowd, and the delusion under which +those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it: it suggested +to me that in meeting here to-night we undertook to represent +something of the all-pervading feeling of that crowd, through all +its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, with her +diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, to the +half-undressed gentleman; who bides his time to take some +refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, +gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placed in this chair +could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could +so well give the crowning grace to our festivities, as one whose +comprehensive genius has in his various works embraced them all, +and who has, in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled +them all at once.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you +have heard this night, what I have seen and known in the bygone +times of Mr. Macready’s management, of the strong +friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of the association of +his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready’s +zealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted me to say +what, in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in +the path we both tread I have uniformly found him from the first +the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, +ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so great an +ornament; never condescending to shuffle it off, and leave it +outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his slippers +outside a mosque.</p> +<p>There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the +effect that authors are not a particularly united body, that they +are not invariably and inseparably attached to each other. +I am afraid I must concede half-a-grain or so of truth I to that +superstition; but this I know, that there can hardly +be—that there hardly can have been—among the +followers of literature, a man of more high standing farther +above these little grudging jealousies, which do sometimes +disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.</p> +<p>And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my +testimony to his great consideration for those evils which are +sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on +him. For, in conjunction with some other gentlemen now +present, I have just embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, +to smoothe the rugged way of young labourers, both in literature +and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary means, +the declining years of meritorious age. And if that project +prosper as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will one +day be an honour to England where there is now a reproach; +originating in his sympathies, being brought into operation by +his activity, and endowed from its very cradle by his +generosity. There are many among you who will have each his +own favourite reason for drinking our chairman’s health, +resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified +successes. According to the nature of your reading, some of +you will connect him with prose, others will connect him with +poetry. One will connect him with comedy, and another with +the romantic passions of the stage, and his assertion of worthy +ambition and earnest struggle against</p> + +<blockquote><p> “those +twin gaolers of the human heart,<br /> +Low birth and iron fortune.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Again, another’s taste will lead him to the +contemplation of Rienzi and the streets of Rome; another’s +to the rebuilt and repeopled streets of Pompeii; another’s +to the touching history of the fireside where the Caxton family +learned how to discipline their natures and tame their wild hopes +down. But, however various their feelings and reasons may +be, I am sure that with one accord each will help the other, and +all will swell the greeting, with which I shall now propose to +you “The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer +Lytton.”</p> +<h2><a name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +315</span>LIV.<br /> +SANITARY REFORM.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 10, 1851.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[The members and friends of the Metropolitan +Sanitary Association dined together on the above evening at Gore +House, Kensington. The Earl of Carlisle occupied the +chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was present, and in proposing +“The Board of Health,” made the following +speech:—]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are very few words for me to +say upon the needfulness of sanitary reform, or the consequent +usefulness of the Board of Health. That no man can estimate +the amount of mischief grown in dirt,—that no man can say +the evil stops here or stops there, either in its moral or +physical effects, or can deny that it begins in the cradle and is +not at rest in the miserable grave, is as certain as it is that +the air from Gin Lane will be carried by an easterly wind into +Mayfair, or that the furious pestilence raging in St. +Giles’s no mortal list of lady patronesses can keep out of +Almack’s. Fifteen years ago some of the valuable +reports of Mr. Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, strengthening +and much enlarging my knowledge, made me earnest in this cause in +my own sphere; and I can honestly declare that the use I have +since that time made of my eyes and nose have only strengthened +the conviction that certain sanitary reforms must precede all +other social remedies, and that neither education nor religion +can do anything useful until the way has been paved for their +ministrations by cleanliness and decency.</p> +<p>I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heard the +speech of the right reverend prelate <a name="citation316"></a><a +href="#footnote316" class="citation">[316]</a> this +evening—a speech which no sanitary reformer can have heard +without emotion. Of what avail is it to send missionaries +to the miserable man condemned to work in a foetid court, with +every sense bestowed upon him for his health and happiness turned +into a torment, with every month of his life adding to the heap +of evils under which he is condemned to exist? What human +sympathy within him is that instructor to address? what natural +old chord within him is he to touch? Is it the remembrance +of his children?—a memory of destitution, of sickness, of +fever, and of scrofula? Is it his hopes, his latent hopes +of immortality? He is so surrounded by and embedded in +material filth, that his soul cannot rise to the contemplation of +the great truths of religion. Or if the case is that of a +miserable child bred and nurtured in some noisome, loathsome +place, and tempted, in these better days, into the ragged school, +what can a few hours’ teaching effect against the +ever-renewed lesson of a whole existence? But give them a +glimpse of heaven through a little of its light and air; give +them water; help them to be clean; lighten that heavy atmosphere +in which their spirits flag and in which they become the callous +things they are; take the body of the dead relative from the +close room in which the living live with it, and where death, +being familiar, loses its awe; and then they will be brought +willingly to hear of Him whose thoughts were so much with the +poor, and who had compassion for all human suffering.</p> +<p>The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is +entitled to all the honour which can be conferred upon it. +We have very near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration +that no very great thing can ever be accomplished without an +immense amount of abuse being heaped upon it. In connexion +with the Board of Health we are always hearing a very large word +which is always pronounced with a very great relish—the +word centralization. Now I submit that in the time of the +cholera we had a pretty good opportunity of judging between this +so called centralization and what I may, I think, call +“vestrylisation.” I dare say the company +present have read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and +I daresay they have also read reports of certain vestries. +I have the honour of belonging to a constituency which elected +that amazing body, the Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the +company present will look to what was done by the Board of Health +at Glasgow, and then contrast those proceedings with the +wonderful cleverness with which affairs were managed at the same +period by my vestry, there will be very little difficulty in +judging between them. My vestry even took upon itself to +deny the existence of cholera as a weak invention of the enemy, +and that denial had little or no effect in staying the progress +of the disease. We can now contrast what centralization is +as represented by a few noisy and interested gentlemen, and what +centralization is when worked out by a body combining business +habits, sound medical and social knowledge, and an earnest +sympathy with the sufferings of the working classes.</p> +<p>Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in a word +not so large as the other,—“Delay.” I +would suggest, in respect to this, that it would be very +unreasonable to complain that a first-rate chronometer +didn’t go when its master had not wound it up. The +Board of Health may be excellently adapted for going and very +willing and anxious to go, and yet may not be permitted to go by +reason of its lawful master having fallen into a gentle slumber +and forgotten to set it a going. One of the speakers this +evening has referred to Lord Castlereagh’s caution +“not to halloo until they were out of the +wood.” As regards the Board of Trade I would suggest +that they ought not to halloo until they are out of the Woods and +Forests. In that leafy region the Board of Health suffers +all sorts of delays, and this should always be borne in +mind. With the toast of the Board of Health I will couple +the name of a noble lord (Ashley), of whose earnestness in works +of benevolence, no man can doubt, and who has the courage on all +occasions to face the cant which is the worst and commonest of +all—the cant about the cant of philanthropy.</p> +<h2><a name="page319"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +319</span>LV.<br /> +GARDENING.<br /> +LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[At the anniversary dinner of the +Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution, held under the +presidency of Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton, Mr. Charles +Dickens made the following speech:—]</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">feel</span> an unbounded and delightful +interest in all the purposes and associations of gardening. +Probably there is no feeling in the human mind stronger than the +love of gardening. The prisoner will make a garden in his +prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in the chink of a +wall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet bean from +one side of his window to the other, and watch it and tend it +with unceasing interest. It is a holy duty in foreign +countries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, and +here, too, the resting-places of those who have passed away from +us will soon be gardens. From that old time when the Lord +walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, down to the day +when a Poet-Laureate sang—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,<br /> + From yon blue heaven above us bent<br /> +The gardener Adam and his wife<br /> + Smile at the claims of long descent,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst the +objects of the greatest interest to mankind. There may be a +few, but I believe they are but a few, who take no interest in +the products of gardening, except perhaps in “London +Pride,” or a certain degenerate kind of +“Stock,” which is apt to grow hereabouts, cultivated +by a species of frozen-out gardeners whom no thaw can ever +penetrate: except these, the gardeners’ art has contributed +to the delight of all men in their time. That there ought +to be a Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners is in the +fitness of things, and that such an institution ought to flourish +and does flourish is still more so.</p> +<p>I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who +is a great gardener, and not only a great gardener but a great +man—the growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated up with a +power of intellect to a plant that is at this time the talk of +the civilized world—I allude, of course, to my friend the +chairman of the day. I took occasion to say at a public +assembly hard-by, a month or two ago, in speaking of that +wonderful building Mr. Paxton has designed for the Great +Exhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen down, but +that it refused to do so. We were told that the glass ought +to have been all broken, the gutters all choked up, and the +building flooded, and that the roof and sides ought to have been +blown away; in short that everything ought to have done what +everything obstinately persisted in not doing. Earth, air, +fire, and water all appear to have conspired together in Mr. +Paxton’s favour—all have conspired together to one +result, which, when the present generation is dust, will be an +enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy, the talent, and +the resources of Englishmen.</p> +<p>“But,” said a gentleman to me the other day, +“no doubt Mr. Paxton is a great man, but there is one +objection to him that you can never get over, that is, he is a +gardener.” Now that is our case to-night, that he is +a gardener, and we are extremely proud of it. This is a +great age, with all its faults, when a man by the power of his +own genius and good sense can scale such a daring height as Mr. +Paxton has reached, and composedly place his form on the +top. This is a great age, when a man impressed with a +useful idea can carry out his project without being imprisoned, +or thumb-screwed, or persecuted in any form. I can well +understand that you, to whom the genius, the intelligence, the +industry, and the achievements of our friend are well known, +should be anxious to do him honour by placing him in the position +he occupies to-night; and I assure you, you have conferred great +gratification on one of his friends, in permitting him to have +the opportunity of proposing his health, which that friend now +does most cordially and with all the honours.</p> +<h2><a name="page322"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +322</span>LVI.<br /> +THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER.<br /> +LONDON, MAY 2, 1870.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of +the Royal Academy in their new galleries in Piccadilly, the +President, Sir F. Grant, and the council gave their usual +inaugurative banquet, and a very distinguished company was +present. The dinner took place in the large central room, +and covers were laid for 200 guests. The Prince of Wales +acknowledged the toast of his health and that of the Princess, +the Duke of Cambridge responded to the toast of the army, Mr. +Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to the volunteers, Mr. Motley to +“The Prosperity of the United States,” Mr. Gladstone +to “Her Majesty’s Ministers,” the Archbishop of +York to, “The Guests,” and Mr. Dickens to +“Literature.” The last toast having been +proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens +responded.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. President</span>, your Royal +Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen,—I beg to acknowledge +the toast with which you have done me the great honour of +associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of +the brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not forgetting +an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy return to it +we all hail with delight, and who now sits—or lately did +sit—within a few chairs of or on your left hand. I +hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the +sisterhood of literature also, although that “better half +of human nature,” to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his +graceful tribute, is unworthily represented here, in the present +state of its rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, +man.</p> +<p>All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that +women, even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to +quite as great distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty +names as men. Their emancipation (as I am given to +understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soon they +may “push us from our stools” at these tables, or how +soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place of +mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressing another +better half of human nature sitting in the president’s +chair.</p> +<p>The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me +to congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in +which risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which +promise of a brilliant succession in time to come is not +wanting. They naturally see with especial interest the +writings and persons of great men—historians, philosophers, +poets, and novelists, vividly illustrated around them here. +And they hope that they may modestly claim to have rendered some +little assistance towards the production of many of the pictures +in this magnificent gallery. For without the patient +labours of some among them unhistoric history might have long +survived in this place, and but for the researches and wandering +of others among them, the most preposterous countries, the most +impossible peoples, and the absurdest superstitions, manners, and +customs, might have usurped the place of truth upon these +walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir Francis Grant, what +unlike portraits you yourself might have painted if you had been +left, with your sitters, to idle pens, unchecked reckless +rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence.</p> +<p>I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad +theme (the recent death of Daniel Maclise) to which his Royal +Highness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the +president referred with the eloquence of genuine feeling. +Since I first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, +it has been my constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and +dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been its +grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side one by +one that I already, begin to feel like the Spanish monk of whom +Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities +around him were the pictures which he loved, and that all the +moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a +dream.</p> +<p>For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and +most constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his +genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but +of his prodigious fertility of mind and wonderful wealth of +intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made +him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he +was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the +freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and +the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a +sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity +of his vocation, without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely +natural at the last as at the first, “in wit a man, +simplicity a child,” no artist, of whatsoever denomination, +I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory +more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer +chivalry to the art goddess whom he worshipped.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[These were the last public words +of Charles Dickens.]</p> +<h2><a name="page325"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +325</span>CHARLES DICKENS AS A LETTER-WRITER, AND AS A POET.</h2> +<h3>I.—AS A LETTER-WRITER.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the graceful but difficult art +of letter-writing Charles Dickens has proved himself as +accomplished a master as he has of public speaking, which the two +or three specimens given in our Introduction, together with the +following extracts from his correspondence with two distinguished +friends, Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold, will sufficiently +show.</p> +<p>In the spring of 1841, some months before Mr. Dickens had +decided upon his first visit to the United States, Washington +Irving, who was then personally unknown to him, addressed him a +letter, full of warm sympathy and generous acknowledgment of his +genius, and of the pleasure Dickens’s writings had afforded +him. A few extracts from Mr. Dickens’s reply are +given below.</p> +<p>In February, 1842, Mr. Dickens had the gratification of making +the personal acquaintance of his illustrious correspondent, who +was induced to overcome his objection to public speaking, and to +take the chair at a banquet given in Dickens’s honour by +some of the citizens of New York. <a +name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 326</span>Irving, +however, entirely broke down in his speech, and could do little +more than propose the toast of the evening.</p> +<p>There were probably never two men of more congenial mind and +common sympathies than the author of the “Sketch +Book,” and the author of “Pickwick;” and it is +pleasant to think that the chance of things should have brought +them together for a time in so unexpected a way.</p> +<p>In Mr. Dickens’ reply he tells Washington Irving +that:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“There is no man in the world who could have +given me the heartfelt pleasure you have, by your kind note of +the 13th of last month. There is no living writer—and +there are very few among the dead—whose approbation I +should feel so proud to earn. And with everything you have +written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart of +hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you could know +how earnestly I write this, you would be glad to read it—as +I hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand I +autographically hold out to you over the broad Atlantic.</p> +<p>“I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint of +an intention to visit England. I can’t. I have +held it at arm’s length, and taken a bird’s-eye view +of it, after reading it a great many times, but there is no +greater encouragement in it this way than on a microscopic +inspection. I should love to go with you—as I have +gone, God knows how often—into Little Britain, and +Eastcheap, and Green Arbour Court, and Westminster Abbey. I +should like to travel with you, outside the last of the coaches, +down to Bracebridge Hall. It would make my heart glad to +compare <a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +327</span>notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the +oil-cloth hat, and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back +parlour of the <i>Mason’s Arms</i>; and about Robert +Preston, and the tallow-chandler’s widow, whose +sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those +delightful places and people that I used to walk about and dream +of in the day-time, when a very small and not +over-particularly-taken-care-of boy. I have a good deal to +say, too, about that dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you +can’t help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much +to hear concerning Moorish legend, and poor, unhappy +Boabdil. Diedrich Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my +pocket, and yet I should show you his mutilated carcass with a +joy past all expression.</p> +<p>“I have been so accustomed to associate you with my +pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, +that I rush at once into full confidence with you, and fall, as +it were naturally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your +open arms. Questions come thronging to my pen as to the +lips of people who meet after long hoping to do so. I +don’t know what to say first, or what to leave unsaid, and +am constantly disposed to break off and tell you again how glad I +am this moment has arrived.</p> +<p>“My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough +for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and +lasting gratification it has given me. I hope to have many +letters from you, and to exchange a frequent +correspondence. I send this to say so. After the +first two or three, I shall settle down into a connected style, +and become gradually rational.</p> +<p>“You know what the feeling is, after having written a +letter, sealed it, and sent it off. I shall picture you +reading this, and answering it, before it has lain one night in +the <a name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +328</span>post-office. Ten to one that before the fastest +packet could reach New York I shall be writing again.</p> +<p>“Do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive +letters? I have my doubts. They get into a dreadful +habit of indifference. A postman, I imagine, is quite +callous. Conceive his delivering one to himself, without +being startled by a preliminary double knock!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the spring of 1842 Mr. Dickens was at Washington, from +whence he wrote to Irving:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“We passed through—literally passed +through—this place again to-day. I did not come to +see you, for I really have not the heart to say +“good-bye” again, and felt more than I can tell you +when we shook hands last Wednesday.</p> +<p>“You will not be at Baltimore, I fear? I thought, +at the time, that you only said you might be there, to make our +parting the gayer. Wherever you go, God bless you! +What pleasure I have had in seeing and talking with you, I will +not attempt to say. I shall never forget it as long as I +live. What <i>would</i> I give, if we could have but a +quiet week together! Spain is a lazy place, and its climate +an indolent one. But if you have ever leisure under its +sunny skies, to think of a man who loves you, and holds communion +with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person +alive—leisure from listlessness, I mean—and will +write to me in London, you will give me an inexpressible amount +of pleasure.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Wishing, in the summer of 1856, to introduce a relation to +Irving, Mr. Dickens sent a pleasant letter of introduction, +wherein he says:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“If you knew how often I write to you +individually and <a name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +329</span>personally, in my books, you would be no more surprised +in seeing this note, than you were in seeing me do my duty by +that flowery julep (in what I dreamily apprehend to have been a +former state of existence) at Baltimore.</p> +<p>“Will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, Mr. +B—, who is associated with a merchant’s house in New +York? Of course, he wants to see you, and know you. +How can <i>I</i> wonder at that? How can anybody?</p> +<p>“I had a long talk with Leslie at the last Academy +dinner (having previously been with him in Paris), and he told me +that you were flourishing. I suppose you know that he wears +a moustache—so do I, for the matter of that, and a beard +too—and that he looks like a portrait of Don Quixote.</p> +<p>“Holland House has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it +now—twelve for my lord, and twelve for my lady; and no +clergyman coils his leg up under his chair all dinner-time, and +begins to uncurve it when the hostess goes. No wheeled +chair runs smoothly in, with that beaming face in it; and +—’s little cotton pocket-handkerchief helped to make +(I believe) this very sheet of paper. A half-sad, +half-ludicrous story of Rogers, is all I will sully it +with. You know, I daresay, that, for a year or so before +his death, he wandered and lost himself, like one of the Children +in the Wood, grown up there and grown down again. He had +Mrs. Procter and Mrs. Carlyle to breakfast with him one +morning—only those two. Both excessively talkative, +very quick and clever, and bent on entertaining him. When +Mrs. Carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about +three-quarters of an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old +eyes on Mrs. Procter, and, pointing to the brilliant discourser +with his poor old finger, said (indignantly), “Who is +<i>she</i>?” Upon this, Mrs. Procter, cutting in, +delivered—(it is <a name="page330"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 330</span>her own story)—a neat oration +on the life and writings of Carlyle, and enlightened him in her +happiest and airiest manner; all of which he heard, staring in +the dreariest silence, and then said (indignantly as before), +“And who are you?”</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">With</span> few of his literary +contemporaries has Mr. Dickens held more cordial and pleasant +relations than with the late <span class="smcap">Douglas +Jerrold</span>. During all the years of their intercourse +that sympathy and friendship existed between them, which two +minds so thoroughly manly and honourable could hardly help +feeling for each other. Dickens, though considerably the +younger of the two, had won earlier the prizes of his +profession. But there was no mean envy and jealousy on the +one side, and no mean assumption on the other. The letters +that passed between the two men are altogether delightful to +read. We shall proceed to give, as far as our space will +allow, a few extracts from those of Dickens to Jerrold, <a +name="citation330"></a><a href="#footnote330" +class="citation">[330]</a> with intercalary elucidations +explanatory of the circumstances under which they were +written.</p> +<p>In the year 1843, Douglas Jerrold wrote to Mr. Dickens from +Herne Bay, where he had taken up his abode in “a little +cabin, built up of ivy and woodbine, and almost within sound of +the sea.”</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens replies:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Herne Bay. Hum! I suppose +it’s no worse than any <a name="page331"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 331</span>other place in this weather, but it +<i>is</i> watery, rather, isn’t it? In my +mind’s eye, I have the sea in a perpetual state of +small-pox, and the chalk running down hill like town milk. +But I know the comfort of getting to work ‘in a fresh +place,’ and proposing pious projects to one’s self, +and having the more substantial advantage of going to bed early, +and getting up ditto, and walking about alone. If there +were a fine day, I should like to deprive you of the last-named +happiness, and to take a good long stroll.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>In the summer of 1844, “Come,” wrote Mr. Dickens +temptingly, “come and see me in Italy. Let us smoke a +pipe among the vines. I have taken a little house +surrounded by them, and no man in the world should be more +welcome to it than you.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Again from Cremona, (November, 1844,) Dickens +writes:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“You rather entertained the notion once, of +coming to see me at Genoa. I shall return straight on the +ninth of December, limiting my stay in town to one week. +Now, couldn’t you come back with me? The journey that +way is very cheap, and I am sure the gratification to you would +be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and would +put you in a painted room as big as a church, and much more +comfortable. There are pens and ink upon the premises; +orange trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood +fires for evenings, and a welcome worth having.” * * *</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p><a name="page332"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 332</span>In +1846, again, Mr. Dickens is off to Switzerland, and still would +tempt Jerrold in his wake. “I wish,” he writes, +“you would seriously consider the expediency and +feasibility of coming to Lausanne in the summer or early +autumn. It is a wonderful place to see; and what sort of +welcome you would find I will say nothing about, for I have +vanity enough to believe that you would be willing to feel +yourself as much at home in my household as in any +man’s.”</p> +<p>Arrived at Lausanne, Mr. Dickens writes that he will be ready +for his guest in June. “We are established +here,” he says, “in a perfect doll’s house, +which could be put bodily into the hall of our Italian +palazzo. But it is in the most lovely and delicious +situation imaginable, and there is a spare bedroom wherein we +could make you as comfortable as need be. Bowers of roses +for cigar-smoking, arbours for cool punch-drinking, mountain and +Tyrolean countries close at hand, piled-up Alps before the +windows, &c., &c., &c.” Then follow +business-like directions for the journey.</p> +<p>But it could not be. Jerrold was busy with his paper, +and with his magazine, and felt unable to abandon them even for a +few weeks. Well, could he reach Paris for Christmas, +persisted Mr. Dickens, and spend that merry time with his +friend.</p> +<p>Early in 1847 Jerrold thought he did see his way clear at last +to make a short visit to Paris, where Dickens was still +established. “We are delighted at your intention of +coming,” writes the latter, giving the most minute details +of the manner in which the journey was to be performed; but even +this journey was never accomplished. Once only, after all +these promises and invitations—and that for but two or +three days—did Douglas Jerrold escape from the cares of +London literary life, to meet Mr. Dickens at Ostend, on his +return from Italy, and have a few days’ stroll about +Belgium.</p> +<p><a name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 333</span>The +following is an extract from a curious and interesting letter +addressed by Dickens to Douglas Jerrold on the subject of public +hanging, respecting which the latter held conservative +opinions:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">‘Devonshire +Terrace, November 17, 1849.</p> +<p>“In a letter I have received from G. this morning he +quotes a recent letter from you, in which you deprecate the +‘mystery’ of private hanging.</p> +<p>“Will you consider what punishment there is, except +death, to which ‘mystery’ does not attach? Will +you consider whether all the improvements in prisons and +punishments that have been made within the last twenty years have +or have not, been all productive of ‘mystery?’ +I can remember very well when the silent system was objected to +as mysterious, and opposed to the genius of English +society. Yet there is no question that it has been a great +benefit. The prison vans are mysterious vehicles; but +surely they are better than the old system of marching prisoners +through the streets chained to a long chain, like the galley +slaves in Don Quixote. Is there no mystery about +transportation, and our manner of sending men away to Norfolk +Island, or elsewhere? None in abandoning the use of a +man’s name, and knowing him only by a number? Is not +the whole improved and altered system, from the beginning to end, +a mystery? I wish I could induce you to feel justified in +leaving that word to the platform people, on the strength of your +knowledge of what crime was, and of what its punishments were, in +the days when there was no mystery connected with these things, +and all was as open as Bridewell when Ned Ward went to see the +women whipped.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page334"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +334</span>II.—AS A POET.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are several among our +foremost prose writers in the present century, who, possessing +high imagination, and a considerable power of rhythmical +expression, have occasionally produced verse of a high though not +of the first order. Lord Macaulay will not be remembered +either by his prize poems, or by his “Lays of Ancient +Rome,” but one who wrote such eloquent prose could hardly +fail ignobly when he attempted verse. Thomas Carlyle, in +spite of his energetic denunciation of modern poetry as mere +dilettantism and trifling, has occasionally courted the muse, and +were the original pieces and translations from the German which +lie scattered through his earlier writings, collected together, +they would by themselves form a volume of no mean value. +They have a wild, rugged melody of their own, as have also the +occasional verses of Emerson; the latter bear in many respects a +remarkable resemblance to those of Blake. The author of +<i>Modern Painters</i> might also have gained some reputation as +a poet, had he chosen to preserve in a more permanent form his +scattered contributions to annuals. Indeed, it would seem +that no eloquent writer of prose is altogether devoid of the +lyric gift if he chooses to exercise it. The only attempt +at poetry by Charles Dickens which is at all known to the general +public is the famous song of “The Ivy Green,” in the +Pickwick Papers. This exquisite little lyric, with its +beautiful refrain, so often wedded to music and so familiar to us +all, would alone suffice to give him no mean rank among +contemporary writers of verse. But in the Comic Opera of +the Village Coquettes, <a name="citation334"></a><a +href="#footnote334" class="citation">[334]</a> to which <a +name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 335</span>we alluded +in our Introduction, there were a dozen songs of equal tenderness +and melody, though, as the author has never thought fit to +reprint the little piece, they are now forgotten.</p> +<p>The first is a song of Harvest-Home, supposed to be sung by a +company of reapers.</p> +<p>It must be mentioned that this and the other songs had the +advantage of being set to music by John Hullah. The next, +“Love is not a feeling to pass away,” was a great +favourite at the time. We quote the first stanza, the last +line of which recalls the little song in the Pickwick Papers:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Love is not a feeling to pass away,<br /> +Like the balmy breath of a summer day;<br /> +It is not—it cannot be—laid aside;<br /> +It is not a thing to forget or hide.<br /> +It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me!<br /> +As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The next is a Bacchanalian song, supposed to be sung by a +country squire.</p> +<p>But the gem of all these little lyrics, in our opinion, is +that of “Autumn Leaves,” of which the refrain strikes +us as being peculiarly happy. The reader, however, shall +judge for himself, from the following quotation:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn +around me here;<br /> +Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!<br /> + How like the hopes of +childhood’s day,<br /> + Thick clustering +on the bough!<br /> + How like those hopes is their +decay,<br /> + How faded are +they now!<br /> +<a name="page336"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 336</span>Autumn +leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here<br /> +Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how +drear!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The next lyric, “The Child and the Old Man,” was +sung by Braham at different concerts, long after the piece from +which it is taken, had been forgotten, and was almost invariably +encored.</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens’s poetical attempts have not, however, been +confined to song-writing. In 1842 he wrote for a friend a +very fine Prologue to a new tragedy. Mr. Westland Marston +came to London in his twenty-first year, and resolved to try his +success in the world of letters: after writing for several of the +second-class magazines, he finished his tragedy of the +“Patrician’s Daughter,” and introduced himself +to Mr. Dickens, who became interested in the play. Struck +with the novelty of “a coat-and-breeches tragedy,” +the good-tempered novelist recommended Macready to produce it, +and after some little hesitation, this distinguished actor took +himself the chief character—Mordaunt,—and also +recited a prologue by Mr. Dickens, <a name="citation336"></a><a +href="#footnote336" class="citation">[336]</a> from which we +quote a few lines.</p> +<p>Impressing the audience strongly with the scope and purpose of +what they had come to see, this prologue thoroughly prepared them +for welcome and applause. The strength and truth of some of +the concluding lines address themselves equally to a larger +audience.</p> +<blockquote><p>“No tale of streaming plumes and harness +bright<br /> +Dwells on the poet’s maiden theme to-night.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page337"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +337</span>Enough for him if in his boldest word<br /> +The beating heart of man be faintly stirr’d.<br /> +That mournful music, that, like chords which sigh<br /> +Through charmed gardens, all who hear it die;<br /> +That solemn music he does not pursue,<br /> +To distant ages out of human view.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<blockquote><p>But musing with a calm and steady gaze<br /> +Before the crackling flame of living days,<br /> +He hears it whisper, through the busy roar<br /> +Of what shall be, and what has been before.<br /> +Awake the Present! Shall no scene display<br /> +The tragic passion of the passing day?<br /> +Is it with man as with some meaner things,<br /> +That out of death his solemn purpose springs?<br /> +Can this eventful life no moral teach,<br /> +Unless he be for aye beyond its reach?</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * *</p> +<blockquote><p>Awake the Present! What the past has sown<br +/> +Is in its harvest garner’d, reap’d, and grown.<br /> +How pride engenders pride, and wrong breeds wrong,<br /> +And truth and falsehood hand in hand along<br /> +High places walk in monster-like embrace,<br /> +The modern Janus with a double face;<br /> +How social usage hath the power to change<br /> +Good thought to evil in its highest range,<br /> +To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth<br /> +The kindling impulse of the glowing youth,<br /> +Crushing the spirit in its house of clay,—<br /> +Learn from the lesson of the present day.<br /> +<a name="page338"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 338</span>Not +light its import, and not poor its mien,<br /> +Yourselves the actors, and your home the scene.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We now come to a very curious fact. Mr. R. H. Horne +pointed out twenty-five years ago, <a name="citation337"></a><a +href="#footnote337" class="citation">[337]</a> that a great +portion of the scenes describing the death of Little Nell in the +“Old Curiosity Shop,” will be found to be +written—whether by design or harmonious accident, of which +the author was not even subsequently fully conscious—in +blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, +Shelley, and some other poets have occasionally adopted. +The following passage, properly divided into lines, will stand +thus:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">NELLY’S +FUNERAL.</p> +<p> “And now the bell—the bell<br /> +She had so often heard by night and day,<br /> + And listen’d to with solemn pleasure,<br /> + Almost as a living voice—<br +/> +Rung its remorseless toll for her,<br /> +So young, so beautiful, so good.</p> +<p> “Decrepit age, and vigorous life,<br +/> +And blooming youth and helpless infancy,<br /> +Pour’d forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength<br +/> + And health, in the full blush<br +/> + Of promise, the mere dawn of life—<br /> +To gather round her tomb. Old men were there,<br /> + Whose eyes were +dim<br /> + And senses +failing—<br /> +Grandames, who might have died ten years ago,<br /> +And still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame,<br /> + The palsied,<br /> +<a name="page339"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 339</span>The +living dead in many shapes and forms,<br /> +To see the closing of this early grave.<br /> + What was the death it would shut in,<br /> +To that which still could crawl and creep above it!</p> +<p>“Along the crowded path they bore her now;<br /> + Pure as the new-fall’n snow<br /> +That cover’d it; whose day on earth<br /> + Had been as fleeting.<br /> +Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven<br /> +In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,<br /> + She pass’d again, and the old church<br /> + Received her in its quiet shade.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words +have been omitted—<i>in</i> and <i>its</i>; and +“grandames” has been substituted for +“grandmothers.” All that remains is exactly as +in the original, not a single word transposed, and the +punctuation the same to a comma.</p> +<p>Again, take the brief homily that concludes the funeral:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh! it is hard to take to heart<br /> +The lesson that such deaths will teach,<br /> + But let no man reject it,<br /> + For it is one that all must learn,<br /> +And is a mighty, universal Truth.<br /> +When Death strikes down the innocent and young,<br /> +For every fragile form from which he lets<br /> + The parting spirit free,<br /> + A hundred virtues rise,<br /> +In shapes of mercy, charity, and love,<br /> + To walk the world and bless it.<br /> + <a name="page340"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 340</span>Of every tear<br /> +That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves<br /> +Some good is born, some gentler nature comes.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Not a ward of the original is changed in the above quotation, +which is worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, +meeting on the common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the +two most dissimilar men in the literature of the century are +brought into the closest approximation.</p> +<p>Something of a similar kind of versification in prose may be +discovered in Chapter LXXVII. of “Barnaby Rudge,” and +there is an instance of successive verses in the Third Part of +the “Christmas Carol,” beginning</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“Far in this den +of infamous resort.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following is from the concluding paragraph of +“Nicholas Nickleby”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The grass was green above the dead +boy’s grave,<br /> + Trodden by feet so small and light,<br /> + That not a daisy droop’d its head<br /> + Beneath their pressure.<br /> + Through all the spring and summer time<br /> +Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands,<br /> + Rested upon the stone.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following stanzas, entitled “A Word in +Season,” were contributed by Mr. Dickens in the winter of +1843 to an annual edited by his friend and correspondent, the +Countess of Blessington. Since that time he has ceased to +write, or at any rate to publish anything in verse.</p> +<p>This poem savours much of the manner of Robert Browning. +Full of wit and wisdom, and containing some very remarkable <a +name="page341"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 341</span>and +rememberable lines, an extract from it will fitly close this +chapter of our volume.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">A WORD IN SEASON.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></p> +<p> “They have a superstition in the +East,<br /> + That <span class="smcap">Allah</span>, written on a +piece of paper,<br /> +Is better unction than can come of priest<br /> + Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper:<br /> +Holding, that any scrap which bears that name,<br /> + In any characters, its front impress’d on,<br +/> +Shall help the finder thro’ the purging flame,<br /> + And give his toasted feet a place to rest on.</p> +<p>“So have I known a country on the earth,<br /> + Where darkness sat upon the living waters,<br /> +And brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth<br /> + Were the hard portion of its sons and daughters:<br +/> +And yet, where they who should have oped the door<br /> + Of charity and light, for all men’s +finding,<br /> +Squabbled for words upon the altar-floor,<br /> + And rent The Book, in struggles for the +binding.” <a name="citation341"></a><a href="#footnote341" +class="citation">[341]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page342"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +342</span>CHARLES DICKENS’S READINGS.<br /> +THE FIRST PUBLIC READING.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BY ONE WHO HEARD IT.</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—<i>In the Introduction +to the present volume</i>, <i>p.</i> 42, <i>it is stated that +Dickens’s</i> “<span class="smcap">First</span> +<i>Reading</i>” <i>in public was given at Birmingham in the +Christmas of</i> 1853. <i>The offer to read on this public +occasion was certainly the</i> <span class="smcap">First</span> +<i>which the great novelist made</i>, <i>but before the Christmas +had come around he thought proper to give a trial Reading before +a much smaller audience</i>, <i>in the quiet little city of +Peterborough</i>.—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> must be sixteen or seventeen +years ago—I cannot fix the date exactly, though the affair +made a strong impression on me at the time—that I witnessed +Charles Dickens’s <i>débût</i> as a public +reader. The circumstances surrounding this event were so +singular that I am tempted to recall them.</p> +<p>Scene, the City of Peterborough—dreamy and quiet enough +then, though now a flourishing railroad terminus—a silent +city, with a grand old Norman cathedral, round which the rooks +cawed lazily all day, straggling narrow streets of brick-built +houses, a large Corn Exchange, a Mechanics’ Institute, and +about seven thousand inhabitants. The Mechanics’ +Institute brought it all about. That well-meaning but +weak-kneed organization was, I need hardly say, in debt. +Mechanics’ Institutes always are in debt. That is +their chief <a name="page343"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +343</span>peculiarity, next to the fact that they never by any +chance have any mechanics among their members. Our +institution was no exception to the rule. On the contrary, +it was a bright and shining example. No mechanics’ +institute of its size anywhere around was so deeply in debt; none +was more snobbishly exclusive in its membership. We had +overrun our resources to such an extent that we could not even +pay the rent of the building we occupied, and were in daily +danger of being turned out of doors. Lectures on highly +improving subjects had been tried, but the proceeds did not pay +the printer. Concerts succeeded better, but the committee +said they were immoral. We had given two monster tea +meetings to pay off the debt, on which occasions all the cake +required was supplied gratuitously by the members’ mothers, +and all the members and their friends came in by free tickets and +ate it up. Henry Vincent delivered us an oration; George +Dawson propounded metaphysical sophistries for our intellectual +mystification; but with all this we got no better of our +troubles—every flounder we made only plunged us deeper into +the mud. At last it was resolved to write to our Borough +members. This was in the good old days of Whig supremacy; +and all the land and all the houses round about us being owned by +one great Whig earl, our borough was privileged to return two +members to represent the opinions of that unprotected earl in +Parliament. A contested election had just come to a close, +and the honeyed promises and grateful pledges of our elected +candidates were still fresh in our memory. So to our +members the committee addressed their tearful +entreaties—“deserving +institution,”—“valuable agency of +self-improvement,”—“pressing pecuniary +embarrassments,” and so forth. Member No. 1 sent his +compliments and a five pound note. Member No. 2 delayed +writing for several days, and then had great pleasure in +informing us that the celebrated author, <a +name="page344"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 344</span>Mr. Charles +Dickens, had kindly consented to deliver a public reading on our +behalf.</p> +<p>What an excitement it caused in the little city! Mr. +Dickens at that time had made no public appearance as a +reader. He had occasionally been heard of as giving +selections from his works to small coteries of friends or in the +private saloon of some distinguished patron of art. But he +had nervously shrunk from any public <i>débût</i>, +unwilling, so it seemed, to weaken his reputation as a writer by +any possible failure as a reader. This diffidence had taken +so strong a hold of him that it might never have been overcome +but for the insidious persuasions of “our +member.” “Here was an opportunity,” he +argued, “for testing the matter without risk: an +antediluvian country town; an audience of farmers’ sons and +daughters, rural shop-keepers, and a few country parsons—if +interest could be excited in the stolid minds of such a +Bœotian assemblage, the success of the reader would be +assured wherever the English tongue was spoken. On the +other hand, if failure resulted, none would be the wiser outside +this Sleepy-Hollow circle.” The bait took, and Mr. +Dickens consented to deliver a public reading in aid of the +Peterborough Mechanics’ Institute. He only stipulated +that the prices of admission should be such that every mechanic, +if he chose, might come to hear him, and named two shillings, a +shilling, and sixpence as the limit of charge.</p> +<p>Vain limitation!—a fortnight before the reading every +place was taken, and half a guinea and a guinea were the current +rates for front seat tickets.</p> +<p>Dickens himself came down and superintended the arrangements, +so anxious was he as to the result. At one end of the large +Corn Exchange before spoken of he had caused to be erected a tall +pulpit of red baize, as much like a Punch and Judy show with the +top taken off as anything. <a name="page345"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 345</span>This was to be the reader’s +rostrum. But, as the tall red pulpit looked lanky and very +comical stuck up there alone, two dummy pulpits of similar +construction were placed one on each side to bear it +company. When the reader mounted into the middle box +nothing was visible of him but his head and shoulders. So +if it be really true, as was stated afterwards by an indiscreet +supernumerary, that Mr. Dickens’s legs shook under him from +first to last, the audience knew nothing of it. The whole +character of the stage arrangements suggested that Mr. Dickens +was sure of his head, but was not quite so sure of his legs.</p> +<p>It was the <i>Christmas Carol</i> that Mr. Dickens read; the +night was Christmas Eve. As the clock struck the appointed +hour, a red, jovial face, unrelieved by the heavy moustache which +the novelist has since assumed, a broad, high forehead, and a +perfectly Micawber-like expanse of shirt-collar and front +appeared above the red baize box, and a full, sonorous voice rang +out the words, +“<i>Marley-was-dead-to-begin-with</i>”—then +paused, as if to take in the character of the audience. No +need of further hesitation. The voice held all +spellbound. Its depth of quiet feeling when the ghost of +past Christmases led the dreamer through the long-forgotten +scenes of his boyhood—its embodiment of burly good nature +when old Fezziwig’s calves were twinkling in the +dance—its tearful suggestiveness when the spirit of +Christmases to come pointed to the nettle-grown, neglected grave +of the unloved man—its exquisite pathos by the death-bed of +Tiny Tim, dwell yet in memory like a long-known tune. That +one night’s reading in the quaint little city, so curiously +brought about, so ludicrous almost in its surroundings, committed +Mr. Dickens to the career of a public reader; and he has since +derived nearly as large an income from his readings as from the +copyright of his novels. Only he signally failed to <a +name="page346"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 346</span>carry out +his wish of making his first bow before an uneducated +audience. The vote of thanks which closed the proceedings +was moved by the senior marquis of Scotland and seconded by the +heir of the wealthiest peer in England.</p> +<p>One other incident suggests itself in this connection. +Somewhere about this time three notable men stood together in a +print-shop in this same city—a singular three-cornered +shop, with three fiddles dangling forlorn and dusty from the +ceiling, and everything from piano-fortes to hair-brushes +comprised in its stock-in-trade. They stood there one whole +morning, laughing heartily at the perplexities of the little +shopwoman, who in her nervousness continually transposed the +first letters of words, sometimes with very comical effect. +Thus, instead of saying, “Put the bottle in the +cupboard,” she would remark, “Put the cottle in the +bupboard.” The laughing trio were Dickens, Albert +Smith, and Layard the traveller, now our minister to the court of +Madrid. I strongly suspect that the eccentricity of the +medical student in Albert Smith’s <i>Adventures of Mr. +Ledbury</i>—the student who invites his friends to +“poke a smipe” when he means them to “smoke a +pipe”—was born on that occasion, and that Charles +Dickens was robbed by his friend of some thunder which he +intended to use himself.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> to return to the +“Readings.” One glance at the platform is +sufficient to convince the audience that Mr. Dickens thoroughly +appreciates “stage effect.” A large screen of +maroon cloth occupies the background; before it stands a light +table of peculiar design, on the inner left-hand corner of which +there peers forth a miniature desk, large enough to accommodate +the reader’s book. On the right hand of the <a +name="page347"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 347</span>table, and +somewhat below its level, is a shelf, where repose a carafe of +water and a tumbler. This is covered with velvet, somewhat +lighter in colour than the screen. No drapery conceals the +table, whereby it is plain that Mr. Dickens believes in +expression of figure as well as of face, and does not throw away +everything but his head and arms, according to the ordinary habit +of ordinary speakers. About twelve feet above the platform, +and somewhat in advance of the table, is a horizontal row of +gas-jets with a tin reflector; and midway in both perpendicular +gas-pipes there is one powerful jet with glass chimney. By +this admirable arrangement, Mr. Dickens stands against a dark +background in a frame of gaslight, which throws out his face and +figure to the best advantage.</p> +<p>He comes! A lithe, energetic man, of medium stature, +crosses the platform at the brisk gait of five miles an hour, and +takes his position behind the table. This is Charles +Dickens, whose name has been a household word for thirty years in +England. He has a broad, full brow, a fine +head,—which, for a man of such power and energy, is +singularly small at the base of the brain,—and a cleanly +cut profile.</p> +<p>There is a slight resemblance between Mr. Dickens and the +Emperor of the French in the latter respect, owing mainly to the +nose; but it is unnecessary to add that the faces of the two men +are totally different. Mr. Dickens’s eyes are +light-blue, and his mouth and jaw, without having any claim to +beauty, possess a strength that is not concealed by the veil of +iron-gray moustache and generous imperial. His head is but +slightly graced with iron-gray hair, and his complexion is +florid. There is a twinkle in his eye, as he enters, that, +like a promissory note, pledges itself to any amount of +fun—within sixty minutes.</p> +<p>People may think in perusing Mr. Dickens’s books that he +must be a man of large humanity, of forgiving nature, of <a +name="page348"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 348</span>generous +impulses; in hearing him read they <i>know</i> that he must be +such a man. This, of course, does not alone make a great +artist; but equally, of course, it goes a long way towards making +one. To this general and catholic qualification for his +task Mr. Dickens adds special advantages of a high order. +He has action of singular ease and felicity, a remarkably +expressive eye, and a mobility of the facial muscles which +belongs to actors of the highest grade. As in the case of +Garrick, it is impossible to say whether love or terror, humour +or despair, are best simulated in a countenance which expresses +each and all on occasion with almost absolute perfection. +This is, no doubt, due in a great measure not to natural +qualities only, but to a varied and peculiar experience. +Some will have it that actors, like poets, are born, not made, +but this is only true in a limited and guarded sense.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. <a +name="citation349"></a><a href="#footnote349" +class="citation">[349]</a></p> +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honour to read to you +‘A Christmas Carol,’ in four staves. Stave one, +Marley’s Ghost. Marley was dead. There is no +doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was +signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief +mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name +was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his +hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>At the close of this paragraph our first impression is that +Mr. Dickens’s voice is limited in power, husky, and +naturally monotonous. If he succeeds in overcoming these +defects, <a name="page349"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +349</span>it will be by dramatic genius. We begin to wonder +why Mr. Dickens constantly employs the rising inflexion, and +never comes to a full stop; but we are so pleasantly introduced +to Scrooge, that our spirits revive.</p> +<p>“Foul weather didn’t know where to leave +him. The heaviest rain and snow, and hail, and sleet could +boast of the advantage over him in only one respect,—they +often ‘came down’ handsomely, and Scrooge <i>never +did</i>.” Here the magnetic current between reader +and listener sets in, and when Scrooge’s clerk “put +on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; +in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he +failed;” the connexion is tolerably well established. +We see old Scrooge very plainly, growling and snarling at his +pleasant nephew; and when that nephew invites that uncle to eat a +Christmas dinner with him, and Mr. Dickens goes on to relate that +Scrooge said “he would see him—yes, I am sorry to say +he did,—he went the whole length of the expression, and +said he would see him in that extremity first.” He +makes one dive at our sense of humour, and takes it +captive. Mr. Dickens is Scrooge; he is the two portly +gentlemen on a mission of charity; he is twice Scrooge when, upon +one of the portly gentlemen remarking that many poor people would +rather die than go to the workhouse, he replies: “If they +would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus +population;” and thrice Scrooge, when, turning upon his +clerk, he says, “You’ll want all day to-morrow, I +suppose?” It is the incarnation of a hard-hearted, +hard-fisted, hard-voiced miser.</p> +<p>“If quite convenient, sir.” A few words, but +they denote Bob Cratchit in three feet of comforter exclusive of +fringe, in well-darned, thread-bare clothes, with a mild, +frightened voice, so thin that you can see through it!</p> +<p><a name="page350"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 350</span>Then +there comes the change when Scrooge, upon going home, “saw +in the knocker, Marley’s face!” Of course +Scrooge saw it, because the expression of Mr. Dickens’s +face makes us see it “with a dismal light about it, like a +bad lobster in a dark cellar.” There is good acting +in this scene, and there is fine acting when the dying flame +leaps up as though it cried, “I know him! +Marley’s ghost!” With what gusto Mr. Dickens +reads that description of Marley, and how, “looking through +his waistcoat, Scrooge <i>could see the two buttons on his coat +behind</i>.”</p> +<p>Nothing can be better than the rendering of the Fezziwig +party, in Stave Two. You behold Scrooge gradually melting +into humanity; Scrooge, as a joyous apprentice; that model of +employers, Fezziwig; Mrs. Fezziwig “one vast substantial +smile,” and all the Fezziwigs. Mr. Dickens’s +expression as he relates how “in came the housemaid with +<i>her cousin</i> the baker, and in came the cook <i>with her +brother’s particular friend the milkman</i>,” is +delightfully comic, while his complete rendering of that dance +where “all were top couples at last, and not a bottom one +to help them,” is owing to the inimitable action of his +hands. They actually perform upon the table, as if it were +the floor of Fezziwig’s room, and every finger were a leg +belonging to one of the Fezziwig’s family. This feat +is only surpassed by Mr. Dickens’s illustration of Sir +Roger de Coverley, as interpreted by Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, when +“a positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s +calves,” and he “cut so deftly that he appeared to +wink with his legs!” It is a maze of humour. +Before the close of the stave, Scrooge’s horror at sight of +the young girl once loved by him, and put aside for gold, shows +that Mr. Dickens’s power is not purely comic.</p> +<p>But the best of all, is Stave Three. We distinctly see +that “Cratchit” family. There are the potatoes +that <a name="page351"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +351</span>“knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out +and peeled;” there is Mrs. Cratchit, fluttering and +cackling like a motherly hen with a young brood of chickens; and +there is everybody. The way those two young Cratchits hail +Martha, and exclaim—“There’s <i>such</i> a +goose, Martha!” can never be forgotten. By some +conjuring trick, Mr. Dickens takes off his own head and puts on a +Cratchit’s. Later Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim come +in. Assuredly it is Bob’s thin voice that pipes out, +“Why, where’s our Martha?” and it is Mrs. +Cratchit who shakes her head and replies, “Not +coming!” Then Bob relates how Tiny Tim behaved: +“as good as gold and better. Somehow he gets +thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest +things you have ever heard. He told me, coming home, that +he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a +cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon +Christmas-day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men +see.” There is a volume of pathos in these words, +which are the most delicate and artistic rendering of the whole +reading.</p> +<p>Ah, that Christmas dinner! We feel as if we were eating +every morsel of it. There are “the two young +Cratchits,” who “crammed spoons into their mouths, +lest they should shriek for goose before their turn;” there +is Tiny Tim, who “beat on the table with the handle of his +knife, and feebly cried, ‘Hoorray,’” in such a +still, small voice. And there is that goose! I see it +with my naked eye. And O the pudding! “A smell +like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like +an eating-house and a pastry-cook’s next door to each +other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was +the pudding.” Mr. Dickens’s sniffing and +smelling of that pudding would make a starving family <a +name="page352"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 352</span>believe +that they had swallowed it, holly and all. It is +infectious.</p> +<p>What Mr. Dickens <i>does</i> is very frequently infinitely +better than anything he says, or the way he says it; yet the +doing is as delicate and intangible as the odour of violets, and +can be no better described. Nothing of its kind can be more +touchingly beautiful than the manner in which Bob +Cratchit—previous to proposing “a merry Christmas to +us all, my dears, God bless us”—stoops down, with +tears in his eyes and places Tiny Tim’s withered little +hand in his, “as if he loved the child, and wished to keep +him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from +him.” It is pantomime worthy of the finest actor.</p> +<p>Admirable is Mrs. Cratchit’s ungracious drinking to +Scrooge’s health, and Martha’s telling how she had +seen a lord, and how he “was much about as tall as +Peter!”</p> +<p>It is a charming cabinet picture, and so likewise is the +glimpse of Christmas at Scrooge’s nephew’s. The +plump sister is “satisfactory, O perfectly +satisfactory,” and Topper is a magnificent fraud on the +understanding; a side-splitting fraud. We see Fred get off +the sofa, and <i>stamp</i> at his own fun, and we hear the plump +sister’s voice when she guesses the wonderful riddle, +“It’s your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!” +Altogether, Mr. Dickens is better than any comedy.</p> +<p>What a change in Stave Four! There sit the gray-haired +rascal “Old Joe,” with his crooning voice; Mr. +Dilber, and those robbers of dead men’s shrouds; there lies +the body of the plundered, unknown man; there sit the Cratchits +weeping over Tiny Tim’s death, a scene that would be beyond +all praise were Bob’s cry, “My little, little +child!” a shade less dramatic. Here, and only here, +Mr. Dickens forgets the nature of Bob’s voice, and employs +all the power of his own, carried away apparently by the +situation. Bob would not <a name="page353"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 353</span>thus give way to his feelings. +Finally, there is Scrooge, no longer a miser, but a human being, +screaming at the “conversational” boy in Sunday +clothes, to buy him the prize turkey “that never could have +stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped +’em off in a minute, like sticks of +sealing-wax.” There is Bob Cratchit behind time, +trying to overtake nine o’clock, “that fled fifteen +minutes before.” There is Scrooge poking Bob in the +ribs, and vowing he will raise his salary; and there is at last +happiness for all, as Tiny Tim exclaims, “God bless us +every one!”</p> +<p>It is difficult to see how the “Christmas Carol” +can be read and acted better. The only improvement possible +is in the ghosts, who are, perhaps, too monotonous; a way ghosts +have when they return to earth. Solemnity and monotony are +not synonymous terms, yet every theatrical ghost insists that +they are, and Mr. Dickens is no exception to the rule. If +monotony is excusable in anyone, however, it is in him; for, when +one actor is obliged to represent <i>twenty-three different +characters</i>, giving to everyone an individual tone, he may be +pardoned if his ghosts are not colloquial.</p> +<p>Talk of sermons and churches! There never was a more +beautiful sermon than this of “The Christmas +Carol.” Sacred names do not necessarily mean sacred +things.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">SIKES AND NANCY. <a +name="citation353a"></a><a href="#footnote353a" +class="citation">[353a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Although amongst his friends, and such of the outside +world as had been admitted to the private performances of the +Tavistock House theatricals, Mr. Dickens was known to possess +much dramatic power, it was not until within the last few weeks +<a name="citation353b"></a><a href="#footnote353b" +class="citation">[353b]</a> that he found scope for its +exhibition on the <a name="page354"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +354</span>platform. Although the characters in his previous +readings had each a distinct and defined individuality—and +in true artistic spirit the comparatively insignificant +characters have as much finish bestowed upon their representation +as the heroes and heroines, <i>e.g.</i> the fat man on +’Change who replies ‘God knows,’ to the query +as to whom Scrooge had left his money—a bit of perfect +Dutch painting—one could not help feeling that the +personation was but a half-personation given under restraint; +that the reader was ‘underacting,’ as it is +professionally termed, and one longed to see him give his +dramatic genius full vent. That wish has now been +realised. When Mr. Dickens called round him some +half-hundred of his friends and acquaintances on whose +discrimination and knowledge of public audiences he had reliance, +and when, after requesting their frank verdict on the experiment, +he commenced the new reading, ‘Sikes and Nancy,’ +until, gradually warming with excitement, he flung aside his book +and acted the scene of the murder, shrieked the terrified +pleadings of the girl, growled the brutal savagery of the +murderer, brought looks, tones, gestures simultaneously into play +to illustrate his meaning, there was no one, not even of those +who had known him best, or who believed in him most, but was +astonished at the power and the versatility of his genius.</p> +<p>“Grandest of all the characters stands out Fagin, the +Jew. The voice is husky and with a slight lisp, but there +is no nasal intonation; a bent back, but no shoulder shrug; the +conventional attributes are omitted, the conventional words are +never spoken; and the Jew fence, crafty and cunning even in his +bitter vengeance, is there before us, to the life.</p> +<p>“Next comes Nancy. Readers of the old editions of +‘Oliver Twist’ will doubtless recollect how +desperately <a name="page355"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +355</span>difficult it was to fight against the dreadful +impression which Mr. George Cruikshank’s picture of Nancy +left upon the mind, and how it required all the assistance of the +author’s genius to preserve interest in the stunted, squab, +round-faced trull whom the artist had depicted. Accurately +delineating every other character in the book, and excelling all +his previous and subsequent productions in his etching of +‘Fagin in the Condemned Cell,’ Mr. Cruikshank not +merely did not convey the right idea of Nancy, which would have +been bad enough, but conveyed the wrong one, which was +worse. No such ill-favoured slut would have found a +protector in Sikes, who amongst his set and in his profession was +a man of mark. We all know Nancy’s position; but just +because we know it we are certain she must have had some amount +of personal comeliness, which Mr. Cruikshank has entirely denied +her. In the reading we get none of the common side of her +character, which peeps forth occasionally in the earlier +volumes. She is the heroine, doing evil that good may come +of it—breaking the trust reposed in her that the man she +loves and they amongst whom she has lived may be brought to +better lives. With the dread shadow of impending death upon +her, she is thrillingly earnest, almost prophetic. Thus, in +accordance with a favourite custom of the author, during the +interview on the steps at London Bridge, not only does the +girl’s language rise from the tone of everyday life and +become imbued with dramatic imagery and fervour, but that +eminently prosaic old person, Mr. Brownlow, becomes affected in +the same manner, saying, ‘before this river wakes to +life,’ and indulging in other romantic types and +metaphors. This may be scarcely life-like, but it is very +effective in the reading, enchaining the attention of the +audience and forming a fine contrast to the simple pathos of the +dialogue in the <a name="page356"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +356</span>murder-scene, every word of which is in the highest +degree natural and well-placed. It is here, of course, that +the excitement of the audience is wrought to its highest pitch, +and that the acme of the actor’s art is reached. The +raised hands, the bent-back head, are good; but shut your eyes, +and the illusion is more complete. Then the cries for +mercy, the ‘Bill! dear Bill! for dear God’s +sake!’ uttered in tones in which the agony of fear prevails +even over the earnestness of the prayer, the dead, dull voice as +hope departs, are intensely real. When the pleading ceases, +you open your eyes in relief, in time to see the impersonation of +the murderer seizing a heavy club, and striking his victim to the +ground.</p> +<p>“Artistically speaking, the story of Sikes and Nancy +ends at the point here indicated. Throughout the entire +scene of the murder, from the entrance of Sikes into the house +until the catastrophe, the silence was intense—the old +phrase ‘a pin might have been heard to drop,’ could +have been legitimately employed. It was a great study to +watch the faces of the people—eager, excited, +intent—permitted for once in a life-time to be natural, +forgetting to be British, and cynical, and unimpassioned. +The great strength of this feeling did not last into the +concluding five minutes. The people were earnest and +attentive; but the wild excitement so seldom seen amongst us died +as Nancy died, and the rest was somewhat of an anti-climax.</p> +<p>“No one who appreciates great acting should miss this +scene. It will be a treat such as they have not had for a +long time, such as, from all appearances, they are not likely to +have soon again. To them the earnestness and force, the +subtlety, the <i>nuances</i>, the delicate lights and shades of +the great dramatic art, will be exhibited by one of the +first—if not the first—of its living masters; while +those of <a name="page357"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +357</span>far less intellectual calibre will understand the +vigour of the entire performance, and be specially amused at the +facial and vocal dexterity by which the crafty Fagin is, +instantaneously changed into the chuckle-headed Noah +Claypole.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Mr. Dickens, as a reader, is an artist of the very first rank; +and to say that his reading of the choicest portions of his own +works is actually as fine in its way as the works themselves in +theirs, is a compliment at once exceedingly high and richly +deserved.</p> +<p>During his late visit to America, the great men of the land +travelled from far and near to be present at the readings; the +poet Longfellow went three nights in succession, and he +afterwards declared to a friend that they were “the most +delightful evenings of his life.”</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7" +class="footnote">[7]</a> This first Sketch was entitled, +“<i>Mrs. Joseph Porter</i>, ‘<i>over the +Way</i>.’” The <i>Monthly Magazine</i> in which +this appeared was published by Cochrane and M‘Crone, and +must not be confounded with <i>The New Monthly Magazine</i>, +published by Colburn.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8a"></a><a href="#citation8a" +class="footnote">[8a]</a> This was the first paper in which +Dickens assumed the pseudonym of “Boz.” The +previous sketches appeared anonymously.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8b"></a><a href="#citation8b" +class="footnote">[8b]</a> Of these Sketches two volumes +were collected and published by Macrone (with illustrations by +George Cruikshank), in February, 1836, and a third in the +December following.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10" +class="footnote">[10]</a> The pamphlet was entitled +<i>Sunday wider Three Heads</i>: <i>As it is</i>; <i>as Sabbath +Bills would make it</i>; <i>as it might be made</i>. By +Timothy Sparks. London, Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 49 +(with illustrations by Hablot K. Browne).</p> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11" +class="footnote">[11]</a> “Memoirs of Joseph +Grimaldi,” edited by <i>Boz</i>. With illustrations +by George Cruikshank. In two volumes. London, R. +Bentley. 1838.</p> +<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15" +class="footnote">[15]</a> “Master Humphrey’s +Clock,” Vol. I. p. 72.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18a"></a><a href="#citation18a" +class="footnote">[18a]</a> “Master Humphrey’s +Clock,” Vol. I., pp. 98, 99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18b"></a><a href="#citation18b" +class="footnote">[18b]</a> June 25, 1841.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24" +class="footnote">[24]</a> Kate Field.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26" +class="footnote">[26]</a> <i>Evenings of a Working Man</i>, +by John Overs, with a Preface relative to the Author, by Charles +Dickens. London: Newby, 1844.</p> +<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27" +class="footnote">[27]</a> <i>Bentley’s +Miscellany</i>, edited by Mr. Dickens during the years +1837–38.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28"></a><a href="#citation28" +class="footnote">[28]</a> Dr. Elliotson.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29"></a><a href="#citation29" +class="footnote">[29]</a> We are told that Overs did not +live long after the publication of his little book: “the +malady under which he was labouring, terminated fatally the +following October.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote30"></a><a href="#citation30" +class="footnote">[30]</a> <i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, +July, 1844.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31" +class="footnote">[31]</a> These five volumes were all +gracefully illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Clarkson +Stanfield, Sir Edwin Landseer, Richard Doyle, and others; and a +set of the original issue is now much sought after, and not +easily met with.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33"></a><a href="#citation33" +class="footnote">[33]</a> “Unto this +Last.” Chap. I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34" +class="footnote">[34]</a> The following instances are, by +kind permission, selected from an admirable article upon this +subject, which appeared in the “Temple Bar” Magazine +for September, 1869.</p> +<p><a name="footnote53"></a><a href="#citation53" +class="footnote">[53]</a> Sir David Wilkie died at sea, on +board the <i>Oriental</i>, off Gibraltar, on the 1st of June, +1841, whilst on his way back to England. During the evening +of the same day his body was committed to the deep.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote55"></a><a href="#citation55" +class="footnote">[55]</a> The <i>Britannia</i> was the +vessel that conveyed Mr. Dickens across the Atlantic, on his +first visit to America.—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote61"></a><a href="#citation61" +class="footnote">[61]</a> <i>Master Humphrey’s +Clock</i>, under which title the two novels of Barnaby Rudge and +The Old Curiosity Shop originally appeared.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote63"></a><a href="#citation63" +class="footnote">[63]</a> “I shall always entertain a +very pleasant and grateful recollection of Hartford. It is +a lovely place, and I had many friends there, whom I can never +remember with indifference. We left it with no little +regret.” <i>American Notes</i> (Lond. 1842). +Vol. I, p. 182.</p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70" +class="footnote">[70]</a> See the <i>Life and Letters of +Washington Irving</i> (Lond. 1863), p. 644, where Irving speaks +of a letter he has received “from that glorious fellow +Dickens, in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my heartfelt +delight with his writings, and my yearnings toward +himself.” See also the letter itself, in the second +division of this volume.—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote88"></a><a href="#citation88" +class="footnote">[88]</a> <span +class="smcap"><i>Tennyson</i></span>, <i>Lady Clara Vere de +Vere</i>, then newly published in collection of 1842.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote95"></a><a href="#citation95" +class="footnote">[95]</a> “That this meeting, while +conveying its cordial thanks to Charles Dickens, Esq., for his +presence this evening, and for his able and courteous conduct as +President, cannot separate without tendering the warmest +expression of its gratitude and admiration to one whose writings +have so loyally inculcated the lessons of benevolence and virtue, +and so richly contributed to the stores of public pleasure and +instructions.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote98"></a><a href="#citation98" +class="footnote">[98]</a> The Duke of Devonshire.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105"></a><a href="#citation105" +class="footnote">[105]</a> <i>Charlotte Corday going to +Execution</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113"></a><a href="#citation113" +class="footnote">[113]</a> The above is extracted from Mrs. +Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands,”, a +book in which her eaves-dropping propensities were already +developed in a sufficiently ugly form.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote150"></a><a href="#citation150" +class="footnote">[150]</a> Alas! the “many +years” were to be barely six, when the speaker was himself +destined to write some memorial pages commemorative of his +illustrious friend (Cornhill Magazine, February, +1864.)—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote153"></a><a href="#citation153" +class="footnote">[153]</a> Mr. Henry Dodd had proposed to +give five acres of land in Berkshire, but, in consequence of his +desiring to attach certain restrictions, after a long and +unsatisfactory correspondence, the Committee, on 13th January +following, rejected the offer. (<i>Communicated</i>.)</p> +<p><a name="footnote161"></a><a href="#citation161" +class="footnote">[161]</a> Claude Melnotte in <i>The Lady +of Lyons</i>, Act iii. sc. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177"></a><a href="#citation177" +class="footnote">[177]</a> Mr. B. Webster.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220"></a><a href="#citation220" +class="footnote">[220]</a> <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, Act +III. Sc. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote239"></a><a href="#citation239" +class="footnote">[239]</a> Robert Browning: <i>Bells and +Pomegranates</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote242"></a><a href="#citation242" +class="footnote">[242]</a> R. H.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250"></a><a href="#citation250" +class="footnote">[250]</a> <i>Carlyle’s French +Revolution</i>. Book X., Chapter I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote259"></a><a href="#citation259" +class="footnote">[259]</a> Henry Thomas Buckle.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260"></a><a href="#citation260" +class="footnote">[260]</a> This and the Speeches which +follow were accidentally omitted in their right places.</p> +<p><a name="footnote263"></a><a href="#citation263" +class="footnote">[263]</a> Hazlitt’s Round Table +(Edinburgh, 1817, vol ii., p. 242), <i>On Actors and +Acting</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274"></a><a href="#citation274" +class="footnote">[274]</a> <i>Vide suprà</i>, +<i>p.</i> 268.</p> +<p><a name="footnote292"></a><a href="#citation292" +class="footnote">[292]</a> An allusion to a well-known +Sonnet of Wordsworth, beginning—“The world is too +much with us—late and soon,” &c.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote303"></a><a href="#citation303" +class="footnote">[303]</a> Alluding to the forthcoming +serial story of <i>Edwin Drood</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote309"></a><a href="#citation309" +class="footnote">[309]</a> The Honourable John Lothrop +Motley.</p> +<p><a name="footnote311"></a><a href="#citation311" +class="footnote">[311]</a> February 26th, 1851. Mr. +Macready’s Farewell Benefit at Drury Lane Theatre, on which +occasion he played the part of Macbeth.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote312"></a><a href="#citation312" +class="footnote">[312]</a> <span +class="smcap">Macbeth</span>, Act I., sc. 7.</p> +<p><a name="footnote316"></a><a href="#citation316" +class="footnote">[316]</a> The Bishop of Ripon (Dr. +Longley).</p> +<p><a name="footnote330"></a><a href="#citation330" +class="footnote">[330]</a> These passages are given by kind +permission of Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, who has obligingly allowed +us to make free use of this portion of the Memoir of his +father. We refer the reader who is desirous of seeing more, +to that ably-written biography.—<span +class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote334"></a><a href="#citation334" +class="footnote">[334]</a> <i>The Village Coquettes</i>: +<i>a Comic Opera in Two Acts</i>. By <span +class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>. The music by John +Hullah. London: Richard Bentley, 1836.</p> +<p><a name="footnote336"></a><a href="#citation336" +class="footnote">[336]</a> Produced for the first time at +the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on Saturday, December 10, +1842. We would fain have given this fine prologue entire, +had we felt authorized in doing so.</p> +<p><a name="footnote337"></a><a href="#citation337" +class="footnote">[337]</a> In “A New Spirit of the +Age.” (Lond., 1844), Vol. I., pp. 65–68.</p> +<p><a name="footnote341"></a><a href="#citation341" +class="footnote">[341]</a> <i>The Keepsake for</i> +1844. <i>Edited by the Countess of Blessington</i>, pp. 73, +74.</p> +<p><a name="footnote349"></a><a href="#citation349" +class="footnote">[349]</a> The reader who desires to +further renew his recollections of Mr. Dickens’s Readings +is referred to Miss Kate Field’s admirable “Pen +Photographs,” published in Boston, in 1868. The +little volume is a valuable estimate of the readings recently +given in America.</p> +<p><a name="footnote353a"></a><a href="#citation353a" +class="footnote">[353a]</a> Extracted (by kind permission) +from a criticism by Mr. Edmund Yates.</p> +<p><a name="footnote353b"></a><a href="#citation353b" +class="footnote">[353b]</a> Written in 1868.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 824-h.htm or 824-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/2/824 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Speeches: Literary and Social + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: February, 1997 [EBook #824] +[This file was first posted on March 1, 1997] +[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1880 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL BY CHARLES DICKENS + + + + +SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841. + + + +[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided +over by the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his +health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks +as follows:-] + +If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better +able to thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened +to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I +could have heard as you heard the "thoughts that breathe and words +that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I +should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at +his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every +demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received +his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his +kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to +respond as I would do to your cordial greeting--possessing, heaven +knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way. + +The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me +very pleasing--a path strewn with flowers and cheered with +sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had +intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the +fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express +an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions +deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real +persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable +connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. + +It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his +works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, +venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. +I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to +increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world +was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for +many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if +I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator +has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in +the bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty +and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, +expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet - + + +"The rank is but the guinea stamp, +The man's the gowd for a' that." + + +And in following this track, where could I have better assurance +that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer +me on than in your kindness on this to me memorable night? + +I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in +reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were +interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound +paradoxical, that you were disappointed--I mean the death of the +little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that +simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to +it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the +school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what +a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement +I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured +horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book +anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of +death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one +word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in +time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved--something +which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I +kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of +the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially +from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The +Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an +adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on +blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my +mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the +sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from +personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, +and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me +are now foremost in their approbation. + +If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little +incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has +given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not +mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty +again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I +never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is +one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be +proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall +never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of +gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, +her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. +And if in the future works which may lie before me you should +discern--God grant you may!--a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I +pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a +Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with +the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you +with a heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I do +assure you. + + +[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, +Mr. Dickens said:-] + + +I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of +which will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no +ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing +of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its +acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and +coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland- +-a literature which he has done much to render famous through the +world, and of which he has been for many years--as I hope and +believe he will be for many more--a most brilliant and +distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the +land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as +inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old +man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch--Christopher +North. I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a +real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day +hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye--but +that is no fiction--and the greyest hair in all the world--who +wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the +wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he +could not help it, because there was always springing up in his +mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, +and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you +might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single +drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw +the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I +was disposed to take it as a personal offence--I was vexed to see +him look so hearty. I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. +I began to think that Scottish life was all light and no shadows, +and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned +again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of +interest. + + +[In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. Dickens +said:-] + + +Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is +confided to me to mention a name which cannot be pronounced without +sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which +England delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has +passed away, as it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, +and his art was nature--I mean David Wilkie. {1} He was one who +made the cottage hearth a graceful thing--of whom it might truly be +said that he found "books in the running brooks," and who has left +in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs the heather. +But however desirous to enlarge on his genius as an artist, I would +rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone from amongst us. +There is his deserted studio--the empty easel lying idly by--the +unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is +that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which death +cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the bright sky; +he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which +roll over him. Let us hope that she who more than all others +mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness +of his time, before age or sickness had dimmed his powers--and that +she may yet associate with feelings as calm and pleasant as we do +now the memory of Wilkie. + + + +SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842. + + + +[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the Britannia, {2} with a service +of plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as +follows:] + +Captain Hewett,--I am very proud and happy to have been selected as +the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my +fellow-passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and +of entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The +ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep +their promises, even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two +goblets, which there should be here, there is, at present, only +one. The deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and, when it +is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete. + +You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; +and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a +sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have +done you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by +myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces +will cheer your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to +come. + +In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope +you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory +by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with +the pleasure of those homes and fire sides from which they once +wandered, and which, but for you, they might never have regained, +so they trust that you will sometimes associate them with your +hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, when you drink from these +cups, you will feel that the draught is commended to your lips by +friends whose best wishes you have; and who earnestly and truly +hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in all the +undertakings of your life. + + + +SPEECH: FEBRUARY 1842. + + + +[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The +company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George +Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast +of "Health, happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens," +having been proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with +great applause, Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:] + +Gentlemen,--If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone +else in the whole wide world--if I were to-night to exult in the +triumph of my dearest friend--if I stood here upon my defence, to +repel any unjust attack--to appeal as a stranger to your generosity +and kindness as the freest people on the earth--I could, putting +some restraint upon myself, stand among you as self-possessed and +unmoved as I should be alone in my own room in England. But when I +have the echoes of your cordial greeting ringing in my ears; when I +see your kind faces beaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never +man had--I feel, it is my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I +have hardly fortitude enough to thank you. If your President, +instead of pouring forth that delightful mixture of humour and +pathos which you have just heard, had been but a caustic, ill- +natured man--if he had only been a dull one--if I could only have +doubted or distrusted him or you, I should have had my wits at my +fingers' ends, and, using them, could have held you at arm's- +length. But you have given me no such opportunity; you take +advantage of me in the tenderest point; you give me no chance of +playing at company, or holding you at a distance, but flock about +me like a host of brothers, and make this place like home. Indeed, +gentlemen, indeed, if it be natural and allowable for each of us, +on his own hearth, to express his thoughts in the most homely +fashion, and to appear in his plainest garb, I have a fair claim +upon you to let me do so to-night, for you have made my home an +Aladdin's Palace. You fold so tenderly within your breasts that +common household lamp in which my feeble fire is all enshrined, and +at which my flickering torch is lighted up, that straight my +household gods take wing, and are transported there. And whereas +it is written of that fairy structure that it never moved without +two shocks--one when it rose, and one when it settled down--I can +say of mine that, however sharp a tug it took to pluck it from its +native ground, it struck at once an easy, and a deep and lasting +root into this soil; and loved it as its own. I can say more of +it, and say with truth, that long before it moved, or had a chance +of moving, its master--perhaps from some secret sympathy between +its timbers, and a certain stately tree that has its being +hereabout, and spreads its broad branches far and wide--dreamed by +day and night, for years, of setting foot upon this shore, and +breathing this pure air. And, trust me, gentlemen, that, if I had +wandered here, unknowing and unknown, I would--if I know my own +heart--have come with all my sympathies clustering as richly about +this land and people--with all my sense of justice as keenly alive +to their high claims on every man who loves God's image--with all +my energies as fully bent on judging for myself, and speaking out, +and telling in my sphere the truth, as I do now, when you rain down +your welcomes on my head. + +Our President has alluded to those writings which have been my +occupation for some years past; and you have received his allusions +in a manner which assures me--if I needed any such assurance--that +we are old friends in the spirit, and have been in close communion +for a long time. + +It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I daresay that +few persons have been more interested in mine than I, and if it be +a general principle in nature that a lover's love is blind, and +that a mother's love is blind, I believe it may be said of an +author's attachment to the creatures of his own imagination, that +it is a perfect model of constancy and devotion, and is the +blindest of all. But the objects and purposes I have had in view +are very plain and simple, and may be easily told. I have always +had, and always shall have, an earnest and true desire to +contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful +cheerfulness and enjoyment. I have always had, and always shall +have, an invincible repugnance to that mole-eyed philosophy which +loves the darkness, and winks and scowls in the light. I believe +that Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches, as she does in +purple and fine linen. I believe that she and every beautiful +object in external nature, claims some sympathy in the breast of +the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf of daily bread. I +believe that she goes barefoot as well as shod. I believe that she +dwells rather oftener in alleys and by-ways than she does in courts +and palaces, and that it is good, and pleasant, and profitable to +track her out, and follow her. I believe that to lay one's hand +upon some of those rejected ones whom the world has too long +forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudest and +most thoughtless--"These creatures have the same elements and +capacities of goodness as yourselves, they are moulded in the same +form, and made of the same clay; and though ten times worse than +you, may, in having retained anything of their original nature +amidst the trials and distresses of their condition, be really ten +times better;" I believe that to do this is to pursue a worthy and +not useless vocation. Gentlemen, that you think so too, your +fervent greeting sufficiently assures me. That this feeling is +alive in the Old World as well as in the New, no man should know +better than I--I, who have found such wide and ready sympathy in my +own dear land. That in expressing it, we are but treading in the +steps of those great master-spirits who have gone before, we know +by reference to all the bright examples in our literature, from +Shakespeare downward. + +There is one other point connected with the labours (if I may call +them so) that you hold in such generous esteem, to which I cannot +help adverting. I cannot help expressing the delight, the more +than happiness it was to me to find so strong an interest awakened +on this side of the water, in favour of that little heroine of +mine, to whom your president has made allusion, who died in her +youth. I had letters about that child, in England, from the +dwellers in log-houses among the morasses, and swamps, and densest +forests, and deep solitudes of the far west. Many a sturdy hand, +hard with the axe and spade, and browned by the summer's sun, has +taken up the pen, and written to me a little history of domestic +joy or sorrow, always coupled, I am proud to say, with something of +interest in that little tale, or some comfort or happiness derived +from it, and my correspondent has always addressed me, not as a +writer of books for sale, resident some four or five thousand miles +away, but as a friend to whom he might freely impart the joys and +sorrows of his own fireside. Many a mother--I could reckon them +now by dozens, not by units--has done the like, and has told me how +she lost such a child at such a time, and where she lay buried, and +how good she was, and how, in this or that respect, she resembles +Nell. I do assure you that no circumstance of my life has given me +one hundredth part of the gratification I have derived from this +source. I was wavering at the time whether or not to wind up my +Clock, {3} and come and see this country, and this decided me. I +felt as if it were a positive duty, as if I were bound to pack up +my clothes, and come and see my friends; and even now I have such +an odd sensation in connexion with these things, that you have no +chance of spoiling me. I feel as though we were agreeing--as +indeed we are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the +classes from which they are drawn--about third parties, in whom we +had a common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, +I say to myself "That's for Oliver; I should not wonder if that was +meant for Smike; I have no doubt that is intended for Nell;" and so +I become a much happier, certainly, but a more sober and retiring +man than ever I was before. + +Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings me back, +naturally and of course, to you. Coming back to you, and being +thereby reminded of the pleasure we have in store in hearing the +gentlemen who sit about me, I arrive by the easiest, though not by +the shortest course in the world, at the end of what I have to say. +But before I sit down, there is one topic on which I am desirous to +lay particular stress. It has, or should have, a strong interest +for us all, since to its literature every country must look for one +great means of refining and improving its people, and one great +source of national pride and honour. You have in America great +writers--great writers--who will live in all time, and are as +familiar to our lips as household words. Deriving (as they all do +in a greater or less degree, in their several walks) their +inspiration from the stupendous country that gave them birth, they +diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higher love for it, all +over the civilized world. I take leave to say, in the presence of +some of those gentleman, that I hope the time is not far distant +when they, in America, will receive of right some substantial +profit and return in England from their labours; and when we, in +England, shall receive some substantial profit and return in +America for ours. Pray do not misunderstand me. Securing to +myself from day to day the means of an honourable subsistence, I +would rather have the affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I +would have heaps and mines of gold. But the two things do not seem +to me incompatible. They cannot be, for nothing good is +incompatible with justice; there must be an international +arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, and I am +confident that the time is not far distant when America will do +hers. It becomes the character of a great country; FIRSTLY, +because it is justice; SECONDLY, because without it you never can +have, and keep, a literature of your own. + +Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such as are not +often awakened, and can never be expressed. As I understand it to +be the pleasant custom here to finish with a toast, I would beg to +give you: AMERICA AND ENGLAND, and may they never have any +division but the Atlantic between them. + + + +SPEECH: FEBRUARY 7, 1842. + + + +Gentlemen,--To say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which +you have drunk the toast just now so eloquently proposed to you--to +say that I give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with +more than compound interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless +the best acknowledgments would be beside such genial hospitality as +yours, is nothing. To say that in this winter season, flowers have +sprung up in every footstep's length of the path which has brought +me here; that no country ever smiled more pleasantly than yours has +smiled on me, and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer +prospect than that which lies before me now, {4} is nothing. + +But it is something to be no stranger in a strange place--to feel, +sitting at a board for the first time, the ease and affection of an +old guest, and to be at once on such intimate terms with the family +as to have a homely, genuine interest in its every member--it is, I +say, something to be in this novel and happy frame of mind. And, +as it is of your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no +reluctance in urging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I +should not so much consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I +should employ that universal language of the heart, which you, and +such as you, best teach, and best can understand. Gentlemen, in +that universal language--common to you in America, and to us in +England, as that younger mother-tongue, which, by the means of, and +through the happy union of our two great countries, shall be spoken +ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of the globe--I +thank you. + +I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have more +than once had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy for an +author to speak of his own books. If the task be a difficult one +at any time, its difficulty, certainly, is not diminished when a +frequent recurrence to the same theme has left one nothing new to +say. Still, I feel that, in a company like this, and especially +after what has been said by the President, that I ought not to pass +lightly over those labours of love, which, if they had no other +merit, have been the happy means of bringing us together. + +It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an author's +personal character from his writings. It may be that you cannot. +I think it very likely, for many reasons, that you cannot. But, at +least, a reader will rise from the perusal of a book with some +defined and tangible idea of the writer's moral creed and broad +purposes, if he has any at all; and it is probable enough that he +may like to have this idea confirmed from the author's lips, or +dissipated by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed--which is +a very wide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects and +parties--is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wish to +diffuse faith in the existence--yes, of beautiful things, even in +those conditions of society, which are so degenerate, degraded, and +forlorn, that, at first sight, it would seem as though they could +not be described but by a strange and terrible reversal of the +words of Scripture, "God said, Let there be light, and there was +none." I take it that we are born, and that we hold our +sympathies, hopes, and energies, in trust for the many, and not for +the few. That we cannot hold in too strong a light of disgust and +contempt, before the view of others, all meanness, falsehood, +cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, that +nothing is high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing is +low, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson taught us in +the great book of nature. This is the lesson which may be read, +alike in the bright track of the stars, and in the dusty course of +the poorest thing that drags its tiny length upon the ground. This +is the lesson ever uppermost in the thoughts of that inspired man, +who tells us that there are + + +"Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, +Sermons in stones, and good in everything." + + +Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no +loss to refer your favour and your generous hospitality back to the +right source. While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of +being what it is, this were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should +care very little for your smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the +other, that if, instead of being what I am, I were the greatest +genius that ever trod the earth, and had diverted myself for the +oppression and degradation of mankind, you would despise and reject +me. I hope you will, whenever, through such means, I give you the +opportunity. Trust me, that, whenever you give me the like +occasion, I will return the compliment with interest. + +Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of +confidence you have engendered between us, and as I have made a +kind of compact with myself that I never will, while I remain in +America, omit an opportunity of referring to a topic in which I and +all others of my class on both sides of the water are equally +interested--equally interested, there is no difference between us, +I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words: INTERNATIONAL +COPYRIGHT. I use them in no sordid sense, believe me, and those +who know me best, best know that. For myself, I would rather that +my children, coming after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by the +general feeling of society that their father was beloved, and had +been of some use, than I would have them ride in their carriages, +and know by their banker's books that he was rich. But I do not +see, I confess, why one should be obliged to make the choice, or +why fame, besides playing that delightful REVEIL for which she is +so justly celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet a few +notes of a different kind from those with which she has hitherto +contented herself. + +It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose +words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, if there +had existed any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk +beneath the mighty pressure on his brain, but might have lived to +add new creatures of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about you +in your summer walks, and gather round your winter evening hearths. + +As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that +touching scene in the great man's life, when he lay upon his couch, +surrounded by his family, and listened, for the last time, to the +rippling of the river he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I +pictured him to myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and +body by his honourable struggle, and hovering round him the +phantoms of his own imagination--Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie +Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson--all the +familiar throng--with cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highland chiefs +innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading away in the dim +distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing the world, +and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow, that, from all +those lands into which they had carried gladness, instruction, and +delight for millions, they brought him not one friendly hand to +help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him from +that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house +and hut of which his own books were read in his own tongue, one +grateful dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every +man who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in +Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and bring the recollection +home! + +Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to +that. You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, +which is already one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; +and you have given those who are nearest and dearest to me a new +reason for recollecting it with pride and interest. Heaven knows +that, although I should grow ever so gray, I shall need nothing to +remind me of this epoch in my life. But I am glad to think that +from this time you are inseparably connected with every recurrence +of this day; and, that on its periodical return, I shall always, in +imagination, have the unfading pleasure of entertaining you as my +guests, in return for the gratification you have afforded me to- +night. + + + +SPEECH: NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842. + + + +[At a dinner presided over by Washington Irving, when nearly eight +hundred of the most distinguished citizens of New York were +present, "Charles Dickens, the Literary Guest of the Nation," +having been "proferred as a sentiment" by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens +rose, and spoke as follows:] + +Gentlemen,--I don't know how to thank you--I really don't know how. +You would naturally suppose that my former experience would have +given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way would have +been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the reverse, +and I have completely baulked the ancient proverb that "a rolling +stone gathers no moss;" and in my progress to this city I have +collected such a weight of obligations and acknowledgment--I have +picked up such an enormous mass of fresh moss at every point, and +was so struck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that I +thought I could never by any possibility grow any bigger. I have +made, continually, new accumulations to such an extent that I am +compelled to stand still, and can roll no more! + +Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stories, +or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their own accord--as I do +not--it presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent +holds good in this case. When I have remembered the short time I +have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and the +poor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of, +and forming an acquaintance with it, I have felt it almost a duty +to decline the honours you so generously heap upon me, and pass +more quietly among you. For Argus himself, though he had but one +mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the reception of a +public entertainment once a-week too much for his greatest +activity; and, as I would lose no scrap of the rich instruction and +the delightful knowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already +I have gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and common jails),- +-I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my way rejoicing, and +for the future to shake hands with America, not at parties but at +home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I say to-night, with a full heart, +and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, and +shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your affectionate and +your noble greeting, which it is utterly impossible to convey in +words. No European sky without, and no cheerful home or well- +warmed room within shall ever shut out this land from my vision. I +shall often hear your words of welcome in my quiet room, and +oftenest when most quiet; and shall see your faces in the blazing +fire. If I should live to grow old, the scenes of this and other +evenings will shine as brightly to my dull eyes fifty years hence +as now; and the honours you bestow upon me shall be well remembered +and paid back in my undying love, and honest endeavours for the +good of my race. + +Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this first person +singular, and then I shall close. I came here in an open, honest, +and confiding spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt a deep +sympathy in your land; had I felt otherwise, I should have kept +away. As I came here, and am here, without the least admixture of +one-hundredth part of one grain of base alloy, without one feeling +of unworthy reference to self in any respect, I claim, in regard to +the past, for the last time, my right in reason, in truth, and in +justice, to approach, as I have done on two former occasions, a +question of literary interest. I claim that justice be done; and I +prefer this claim as one who has a right to speak and be heard. I +have only to add that I shall be as true to you as you have been to +me. I recognize in your enthusiastic approval of the creatures of +my fancy, your enlightened care for the happiness of the many, your +tender regard for the afflicted, your sympathy for the downcast, +your plans for correcting and improving the bad, and for +encouraging the good; and to advance these great objects shall be, +to the end of my life, my earnest endeavour, to the extent of my +humble ability. Having said thus much with reference to myself, I +shall have the pleasure of saying a few words with reference to +somebody else. + +There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of +my books--I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop--wrote to +me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, +that if I had written the book under every circumstance of +disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the +reverse, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best +and most happy reward. I answered him, {5} and he answered me, and +so we kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled +between us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and [laying +his hand it upon Irving's shoulder] here he sits! I need not tell +you how happy and delighted I am to see him here to-night in this +capacity. + +Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don't go upstairs to bed two +nights out of the seven--as a very creditable witness near at hand +can testify--I say I do not go to bed two nights out of the seven +without taking Washington Irving under my arm; and, when I don't +take him, I take his own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington +Irving! Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day when I +came up by the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate, and all these +places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited Shakespeare's +birthplace, and went beneath the roof where he first saw light, +whose name but HIS was pointed out to me upon the wall? Washington +Irving--Diedrich Knickerbocker--Geoffrey Crayon--why, where can you +go that they have not been there before? Is there an English farm- +-is there an English stream, an English city, or an English +country-seat, where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge +Hall in existence? Has it no ancient shades or quiet streets? + +In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an +old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar's Head, a little man +with a red nose, and an oilskin hat. When I came away he was +sitting there still!--not a man LIKE him, but the same man--with +the nose of immortal redness and the hat of an undying glaze! +Crayon, while there, was on terms of intimacy with a certain +radical fellow, who used to go about, with a hatful of newspapers, +wofully out at elbows, and with a coat of great antiquity. Why, +gentlemen, I know that man--Tibbles the elder, and he has not +changed a hair; and, when I came away, he charged me to give his +best respects to Washington Irving! + +Leaving the town and the rustic life of England--forgetting this +man, if we can--putting out of mind the country church-yard and the +broken heart--let us cross the water again, and ask who has +associated himself most closely with the Italian peasantry and the +bandits of the Pyrenees? When the traveller enters his little +chamber beyond the Alps--listening to the dim echoes of the long +passages and spacious corridors--damp, and gloomy, and cold--as he +hears the tempest beating with fury against his window, and gazes +at the curtains, dark, and heavy, and covered with mould--and when +all the ghost-stories that ever were told come up before him--amid +all his thick-coming fancies, whom does he think of? Washington +Irving. + +Go farther still: go to the Moorish Mountains, sparkling full in +the moonlight--go among the water-carriers and the village gossips, +living still as in days of old--and who has travelled among them +before you, and peopled the Alhambra and made eloquent its shadows? +Who awakes there a voice from every hill and in every cavern, and +bids legends, which for centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or +watched unwinkingly, start up and pass before you in all their life +and glory? + +But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbus upon his gallant +ship, traversed with him the dark and mighty ocean, leaped upon the +land and planted there the flag of Spain, but this same man, now +sitting by my side? And being here at home again, who is a more +fit companion for money-diggers? and what pen but his has made Rip +Van Winkle, playing at nine-pins on that thundering afternoon, as +much part and parcel of the Catskill Mountains as any tree or crag +that they can boast? + +But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and which I am apt +to pursue; and lest I should be tempted now to talk too long about +them, I will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most +appropriate, I am sure, in the presence of such writers as Bryant, +Halleck, and--but I suppose I must not mention the ladies here - + + +THE LITERATURE OF AMERICA: + + +She well knows how to do honour to her own literature and to that +of other lands, when she chooses Washington Irving for her +representative in the country of Cervantes. + + + +SPEECH: MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843. + + + +[This address was delivered at a soiree of the members of the +Manchester, Athenaeum, at which Mr. Dickens presided. Among the +other speakers on the occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--I am sure I need scarcely tell you that I am +very proud and happy; and that I take it as a great distinction to +be asked to come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when, +even with the brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see before +me, I can hail it as the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance +of all, that we assemble together here, even here, upon neutral +ground, where we have no more knowledge of party difficulties, or +public animosities between side and side, or between man and man, +than if we were a public meeting in the commonwealth of Utopia. + +Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds, +this assembly is not less interesting to me, believe me--although, +personally, almost a stranger here--than it is interesting to you; +and I take it, that it is not of greater importance to all of us +than it is to every man who has learned to know that he has an +interest in the moral and social elevation, the harmless +relaxation, the peace, happiness, and improvement, of the community +at large. Not even those who saw the first foundation of your +Athenaeum laid, and watched its progress, as I know they did, +almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature, +until it reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town--not +even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its +usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am +persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may +thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who-- +whether consciously or unconsciously, matters not--have, in the +principle of its success and bright example, a deep and personal +concern. + +It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town, +this little world of labour, that she should stand out foremost in +the foremost rank in such a cause. It well becomes her, that, +among her numerous and noble public institutions, she should have a +splendid temple sacred to the education and improvement of a large +class of those who, in their various useful stations, assist in the +production of our wealth, and in rendering her name famous through +the world. I think it is grand to know, that, while her factories +re-echo with the clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl and +rattle of machinery, the immortal mechanism of God's own hand, the +mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and +tended in a palace of its own. That it is a structure deeply fixed +and rooted in the public spirit of this place, and built to last, I +have no more doubt, judging from the spectacle I see before me, and +from what I know of its brief history, than I have of the reality +of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars that spring up about +us. + +You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the Athenaeum +was projected at a time when commerce was in a vigorous and +flourishing condition, and when those classes of society to which +it particularly addresses itself were fully employed, and in the +receipt of regular incomes. A season of depression almost without +a parallel ensued, and large numbers of young men employed in +warehouses and offices suddenly found their occupation gone, and +themselves reduced to very straitened and penurious circumstances. +This altered state of things led, as I am told, to the compulsory +withdrawal of many of the members, to a proportionate decrease in +the expected funds, and to the incurrence of a debt of 3,000 +pounds. By the very great zeal and energy of all concerned, and by +the liberality of those to whom they applied for help, that debt is +now in rapid course of being discharged. A little more of the same +indefatigable exertion on the one hand, and a little more of the +same community of feeling upon the other, and there will be no such +thing; the figures will be blotted out for good and all, and, from +that time, the Athenaeum may be said to belong to you, and to your +heirs for ever. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most thriving, +and in its least flourishing condition--here, with its cheerful +rooms, its pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library +of 6,000 volumes, its classes for the study of the foreign +languages, elocution, music; its opportunities of discussion and +debate, of healthful bodily exercise, and, though last not least-- +for by this I set great store, as a very novel and excellent +provision--its opportunities of blameless, rational enjoyment, here +it is, open to every youth and man in this great town, accessible +to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all these benefits, and +the inestimable ends to which they lead, can set aside one sixpence +weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the subscription, and upon +the fact that the number of members has considerably more than +doubled within the last twelve months, as strides in the path of +the very best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the +history of mankind. + +I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a +prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake up +the ashes of the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be +urged by men of all parties against institutions such as this, +whose interests we are met to promote; but their philosophy was +always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short +sentence. How often have we heard from a large class of men wise +in their generation, who would really seem to be born and bred for +no other purpose than to pass into currency counterfeit and +mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some +other criminals to utter base coin--how often have we heard from +them, as an all-convincing argument, that "a little learning is a +dangerous thing?" Why, a little hanging was considered a very +dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, with this +difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous, we had a +great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, we +were to have none at all. Why, when I hear such cruel absurdities +gravely reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt whether the +parrots of society are not more pernicious to its interests than +its birds of prey. I should be glad to hear such people's estimate +of the comparative danger of "a little learning" and a vast amount +of ignorance; I should be glad to know which they consider the most +prolific parent of misery and crime. Descending a little lower in +the social scale, I should be glad to assist them in their +calculations, by carrying them into certain gaols and nightly +refuges I know of, where my own heart dies within me, when I see +thousands of immortal creatures condemned, without alternative or +choice, to tread, not what our great poet calls the "primrose path" +to the everlasting bonfire, but one of jaded flints and stones, +laid down by brutal ignorance, and held together, like the solid +rocks, by years of this most wicked axiom. + +Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright in +deed and thought, whether they would rather have ignorant or +enlightened persons in their own employment? Why, we have had +their answer in this building; we have it in this company; we have +it emphatically given in the munificent generosity of your own +merchants of Manchester, of all sects and kinds, when this +establishment was first proposed. But are the advantages derivable +by the people from institutions such as this, only of a negative +character? If a little learning be an innocent thing, has it no +distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon the mind? The +old doggerel rhyme, so often written in the beginning of books, +says that + + +"When house and lands are gone and spent, +Then learning is most excellent;" + + +but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, and say that + + +"Though house and lands be never got, +Learning can give what they canNOT." + + +And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned by +every man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a place as +the Athenaeum, is self-respect--an inward dignity of character, +which, once acquired and righteously maintained, nothing--no, not +the hardest drudgery, nor the direst poverty--can vanquish. Though +he should find it hard for a season even to keep the wolf--hunger-- +from his door, let him but once have chased the dragon--ignorance-- +from his hearth, and self-respect and hope are left him. You could +no more deprive him of those sustaining qualities by loss or +destruction of his worldly goods, than you could, by plucking out +his eyes, take from him an internal consciousness of the bright +glory of the sun. + +The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his +sphere of hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a +place as the Athenaeum, acquires for himself that property of soul +which has in all times upheld struggling men of every degree, but +self-made men especially and always. He secures to himself that +faithful companion which, while it has ever lent the light of its +countenance to men of rank and eminence who have deserved it, has +ever shed its brightest consolations on men of low estate and +almost hopeless means. It took its patient seat beside Sir Walter +Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; it laid its head upon +the block with More; but it did not disdain to watch the stars with +Ferguson, the shepherd's boy; it walked the streets in mean attire +with Crabbe; it was a poor barber here in Lancashire with +Arkwright; it was a tallow-chandler's son with Franklin; it worked +at shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the plough +with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, it +whispers courage even at this day in ears I could name in Sheffield +and in Manchester. + +The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place learns, +the better, gentler, kinder man he must become. When he knows how +much great minds have suffered for the truth in every age and time, +and to what dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will +become more tolerant of other men's belief in all matters, and will +incline more leniently to their sentiments when they chance to +differ from his own. Understanding that the relations between +himself and his employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility, +he will discharge his part of the implied contract cheerfully, +satisfactorily, and honourably; for the history of every useful +life warns him to shape his course in that direction. + +The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish kind, +but extend themselves to his home, and to those whom it contains. +Something of what he hears or reads within such walls can scarcely +fail to become at times a topic of discourse by his own fireside, +nor can it ever fail to lead to larger sympathies with man, and to +a higher veneration for the great Creator of all the wonders of +this universe. It appears to his home and his homely feeling in +other ways; for at certain times he carries there his wife and +daughter, or his sister, or, possibly, some bright-eyed +acquaintance of a more tender description. Judging from what I see +before me, I think it is very likely; I am sure I would if I could. +He takes her there to enjoy a pleasant evening, to be gay and +happy. Sometimes it may possibly happen that he dates his +tenderness from the Athenaeum. I think that is a very excellent +thing, too, and not the least among the advantages of the +institution. In any case, I am sure the number of bright eyes and +beaming faces which grace this meeting to-night by their presence, +will never be among the least of its excellences in my +recollection. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, the +pleasing task your favour has devolved upon me, or the strong and +inspiring confirmation I have to-night, of all the hopes and +reliances I have ever placed upon institutions of this nature. In +the latter point of view--in their bearing upon this latter point-- +I regard them as of great importance, deeming that the more +intelligent and reflective society in the mass becomes, and the +more readers there are, the more distinctly writers of all kinds +will be able to throw themselves upon the truthful feeling of the +people and the more honoured and the more useful literature must +be. At the same time, I must confess that, if there had been an +Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some +leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which +was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably +haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity +might probably have lacked the information that certain monsters of +virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and wider +scale, let me say it once again--it is in the effect of such +institutions upon the great social system, and the peace and +happiness of mankind, that I delight to contemplate them; and, in +my heart, I am quite certain that long after your institution, and +others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, the noble +harvest of the seed sown in them will shine out brightly in the +wisdom, the mercy, and the forbearance of another race. + + + +SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844. + + + +[The following address was delivered at a soiree of the Liverpool +Mechanics' Institution, at which Mr. Dickens presided.] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--It was rather hard of you to take away my +breath before I spoke a word; but I would not thank you, even if I +could, for the favour which has set me in this place, or for the +generous kindness which has greeted me so warmly,--because my first +strong impulse still would be, although I had that power, to lose +sight of all personal considerations in the high intent and meaning +of this numerous assemblage, in the contemplation of the noble +objects to which this building is devoted, of its brilliant and +inspiring history, of that rough, upward track, so bravely trodden, +which it leaves behind, and that bright path of steadily-increasing +usefulness which lies stretched out before it. My first strong +impulse still would be to exchange congratulations with you, as the +members of one united family, on the thriving vigour of this +strongest child of a strong race. My first strong impulse still +would be, though everybody here had twice as many hundreds of hands +as there are hundreds of persons present, to shake them in the +spirit, everyone, always, allow me to say, excepting those hands +(and there are a few such here), which, with the constitutional +infirmity of human nature, I would rather salute in some more +tender fashion. + +When I first had the honour of communicating with your Committee +with reference to this celebration, I had some selfish hopes that +the visit proposed to me might turn out to be one of +congratulation, or, at least, of solicitous inquiry; for they who +receive a visitor in any season of distress are easily touched and +moved by what he says, and I entertained some confident expectation +of making a mighty strong impression on you. But, when I came to +look over the printed documents which were forwarded to me at the +same time, and with which you are all tolerably familiar, these +anticipations very speedily vanished, and left me bereft of all +consolation, but the triumphant feeling to which I have referred. +For what do I find, on looking over those brief chronicles of this +swift conquest over ignorance and prejudice, in which no blood has +been poured out, and no treaty signed but that one sacred compact +which recognises the just right of every man, whatever his belief, +or however humble his degree, to aspire, and to have some means of +aspiring, to be a better and a wiser man? I find that, in 1825, +certain misguided and turbulent persons proposed to erect in +Liverpool an unpopular, dangerous, irreligious, and revolutionary +establishment, called a Mechanics' Institution; that, in 1835, +Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on pretty comfortably in +the meantime, in spite of it, the first stone of a new and spacious +edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; that, it was +afterwards, at different periods, considerably enlarged; that, in +1844, conspicuous amongst the public beauties of a beautiful town, +here it stands triumphant, its enemies lived down, its former +students attesting, in their various useful callings and pursuits, +the sound, practical information it afforded them; its members +numbering considerably more than 3,000, and setting in rapidly for +6,000 at least; its library comprehending 11,000 volumes, and daily +sending forth its hundreds of books into private homes; its staff +of masters and officers, amounting to half-a-hundred in themselves; +its schools, conveying every sort of instruction, high and low, +adapted to the labour, means, exigencies, and convenience of nearly +every class and grade of persons. I was here this morning, and in +its spacious halls I found stores of the wonders worked by nature +in the air, in the forest, in the cavern, and in the sea--stores of +the surpassing engines devised by science for the better knowledge +of other worlds, and the greater happiness of this--stores of those +gentler works of art, which, though achieved in perishable stone, +by yet more perishable hands of dust, are in their influence +immortal. With such means at their command, so well-directed, so +cheaply shared, and so extensively diffused, well may your +Committee say, as they have done in one of their Reports, that the +success of this establishment has far exceeded their most sanguine +expectations. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whose words +they quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the wonderful effects of +little things and small beginnings, that the influence of the +loadstone was first discovered in particles of iron, and not in +iron bars, so they may lay it to their hearts, that when they +combined together to form the institution which has risen to this +majestic height, they issued on a field of enterprise, the glorious +end of which they cannot even now discern. Every man who has felt +the advantages of, or has received improvement in this place, +carries its benefits into the society in which he moves, and puts +them out at compound interest; and what the blessed sum may be at +last, no man can tell. Ladies and gentlemen, with that Christian +prelate whose name appears on your list of honorary Members; that +good and liberal man who once addressed you within these walls, in +a spirit worthy of his calling, and of his High Master--I look +forward from this place, as from a tower, to the time when high and +low, and rich and poor, shall mutually assist, improve, and educate +each other. + +I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, with its +3,200 members, and at least 3,200 arguments in every one, to enter +on any advocacy of the principle of Mechanics' Institutions, or to +discuss the subject with those who do or ever did object to them. +I should as soon think of arguing the point with those untutored +savages whose mode of life you last year had the opportunity of +witnessing; indeed, I am strongly inclined to believe them by far +the more rational class of the two. Moreover, if the institution +itself be not a sufficient answer to all such objections, then +there is no such thing in fact or reason, human or divine. Neither +will I venture to enter into those details of the management of +this place which struck me most on the perusal of its papers; but I +cannot help saying how much impressed and gratified I was, as +everybody must be who comes to their perusal for the first time, by +the extraordinary munificence with which this institution has been +endowed by certain gentlemen. + +Amongst the peculiar features of management which made the greatest +impression on me, I may observe that that regulation which empowers +fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, to introduce their +sons who are minors; and masters, on payment of the astoundingly +small sum of five shillings annually, in like manner their +apprentices, is not the least valuable of its privileges; and, +certainly not the one least valuable to society. And, ladies and +gentlemen, I cannot say to you what pleasure I derived from the +perusal of an apparently excellent report in your local papers of a +meeting held here some short time since, in aid of the formation of +a girls' school in connexion with this institution. This is a new +and striking chapter in the history of these institutions; it does +equal credit to the gallantry and policy of this, and disposes one +to say of it with a slight parody on the words of Burns, that + + +"Its 'prentice han' it tried on man, +And then it TAUGHT the lasses, O." + + +That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessons are +oftenest heeded in after life, should be well taught themselves, is +a proposition few reasonable men will gainsay; and, certainly, to +breed up good husbands on the one hand, and good wives on the +other, does appear as reasonable and straightforward a plan as +could well be devised for the improvement of the next generation. + +This, and what I see before me, naturally brings me to our fairer +members, in respect of whom I have no doubt you will agree with me, +that they ought to be admitted to the widest possible extent, and +on the lowest possible terms; and, ladies, let me venture to say to +you, that you never did a wiser thing in all your lives than when +you turned your favourable regard on such an establishment as this- +-for wherever the light of knowledge is diffused, wherever the +humanizing influence of the arts and sciences extends itself, +wherever there is the clearest perception of what is beautiful, and +good, and most redeeming, amid all the faults and vices of mankind, +there your character, your virtues, your graces, your better +nature, will be the best appreciated, and there the truest homage +will be proudly paid to you. You show best, trust me, in the +clearest light; and every ray that falls upon you at your own +firesides, from any book or thought communicated within these +walls, will raise you nearer to the angels in the eyes you care for +most. + +I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen, between +you and the pleasure we all anticipate in hearing other gentlemen, +and in enjoying those social pleasures with which it is a main part +of the wisdom of this society to adorn and relieve its graver +pursuits. We all feel, I am sure, being here, that we are truly +interested in the cause of human improvement and rational +education, and that we pledge ourselves, everyone as far as in him +lies, to extend the knowledge of the benefits afforded in this +place, and to bear honest witness in its favour. To those who yet +remain without its walls, but have the means of purchasing its +advantages, we make appeal, and in a friendly and forbearing spirit +say, "Come in, and be convinced - + + +'Who enters here, leaves DOUBT behind.'" + + +If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and are superior +to its advantages, so much the more should you make one in sympathy +with those who are below you. Beneath this roof we breed the men +who, in the time to come, must be found working for good or evil, +in every quarter of society. If mutual respect and forbearance +among various classes be not found here, where so many men are +trained up in so many grades, to enter on so many roads of life, +dating their entry from one common starting-point, as they are all +approaching, by various paths, one common end, where else can that +great lesson be imbibed? Differences of wealth, of rank, of +intellect, we know there must be, and we respect them; but we would +give to all the means of taking out one patent of nobility, and we +define it, in the words of a great living poet, who is one of us, +and who uses his great gifts, as he holds them in trust, for the +general welfare - + + +"Howe'er it be, it seems to me +'Tis only noble to be good: +True hearts are more than coronets, +And simple faith than Norman blood." {6} + + + +SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844. + + + +[The following speech was delivered at a Conversazione, in aid of +the funds of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution, at which Mr +Dickens presided.] + +You will think it very unwise, or very self-denying in me, in such +an assembly, in such a splendid scene, and after such a welcome, to +congratulate myself on having nothing new to say to you: but I do +so, notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I had +the honour of attending at Manchester, shortly before Christmas, +and at Liverpool, only the night before last, for a purpose similar +to that which brings you together this evening; and looking down a +short perspective of similar engagements, I feel gratification at +the thought that I shall very soon have nothing at all to say; in +which case, I shall be content to stake my reputation, like the +Spectator of Addison, and that other great periodical speaker, the +Speaker of the House of Commons, on my powers of listening. + +This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with, are not +the only reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial, and peculiar +interest in this night's proceedings. The Polytechnic Institution +of Birmingham is in its infancy--struggling into life under all +those adverse and disadvantageous circumstances which, to a greater +or less extent, naturally beset all infancy; but I would much +rather connect myself with it now, however humble, in its days of +difficulty and of danger, than look back on its origin when it may +have become strong, and rich, and powerful. I should prefer an +intimate association with it now, in its early days and apparent +struggles, to becoming its advocate and acquaintance, its fair- +weather friend, in its high and palmy days. I would rather be able +to say I knew it in its swaddling-clothes, than in maturer age. +Its two elder brothers have grown old and died: their chests were +weak--about their cradles nurses shook their heads, and gossips +groaned; but the present institution shot up, amidst the ruin of +those which have fallen, with an indomitable constitution, with +vigorous and with steady pulse; temperate, wise, and of good +repute; and by perseverance it has become a very giant. Birmingham +is, in my mind and in the minds of most men, associated with many +giants; and I no more believe that this young institution will turn +out sickly, dwarfish, or of stunted growth, than I do that when the +glass-slipper of my chairmanship shall fall off, and the clock +strike twelve to-night, this hall will be turned into a pumpkin. I +found that strong belief upon the splendid array of grace and +beauty by which I am surrounded, and which, if it only had one- +hundredth part of the effect upon others it has upon me, could do +anything it pleased with anything and anybody. I found my strong +conviction, in the second place, upon the public spirit of the town +of Birmingham--upon the name and fame of its capitalists and +working men; upon the greatness and importance of its merchants and +manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are constantly in +progress; upon the skill and intelligence of its artisans, which +are daily developed; and the increasing knowledge of all portions +of the community. All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that +your institution will advance--that it will and must progress, and +that you will not be content with lingering leagues behind. + +I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with +the object of this assembly; and it is, that the resolutions about +to be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian +or class nature; that they do not confine themselves to any one +single institution, but assert the great and omnipotent principles +of comprehensive education everywhere and under every circumstance. +I beg leave to say that I concur, heart and hand, in those +principles, and will do all in my power for their advancement; for +I hold, in accordance with the imperfect knowledge which I possess, +that it is impossible for any fabric of society to go on day after +day, and year after year, from father to son, and from grandfather +to grandson, punishing men for not engaging in the pursuit of +virtue and for the practice of crime, without showing them what +virtue is, and where it best can be found--in justice, religion, +and truth. The only reason that can possibly be adduced against it +is one founded on fiction--namely, the case where an obdurate old +geni, in the "Arabian Nights," was bound upon taking the life of a +merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. +I recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of charming fancies, +which I consider not inappropriate: it is a case where a powerful +spirit has been imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, in a casket +with a leaden cover, and the seal of Solomon upon it; there he had +lain neglected for many centuries, and during that period had made +many different vows: at first, that he would reward magnificently +those who should release him; and at last, that he would destroy +them. Now, there is a spirit of great power--the Spirit of +Ignorance--which is shut up in a vessel of leaden composition, and +sealed with the seal of many, many Solomons, and which is +effectually in the same position: release it in time, and it will +bless, restore, and reanimate society; but let it lie under the +rolling waves of years, and its blind revenge is sure to lead to +certain destruction. That there are classes which, if rightly +treated, constitute strength, and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it +impossible to deny--by these classes I mean industrious, +intelligent, and honourably independent men, in whom the higher +classes of Birmingham are especially interested, and bound to +afford them the means of instruction and improvement, and to +ameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be it from me +(and I wish to be most particularly understood) to attempt to +depreciate the excellent Church Instruction Societies, or the +worthy, sincere, and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen by +whom they are usually conducted; on the contrary, I believe that +they have done, and are doing, much good, and are deserving of high +praise; but I hope that, without offence, in a community such as +Birmingham, there are other objects not unworthy in the sight of +heaven, and objects of recognised utility which are worthy of +support--principles which are practised in word and deed in +Polytechnic Institutions--principles for the diffusion of which +honest men of all degrees and of every creed might associate +together, on an independent footing and on neutral ground, and at a +small expense, for the better understanding and the greater +consideration of each other, and for the better cultivation of the +happiness of all: for it surely cannot be allowed that those who +labour day by day, surrounded by machinery, shall be permitted to +degenerate into machines themselves, but, on the contrary, they +should assert their common origin from their Creator, at the hands +of those who are responsible and thinking men. There is, indeed, +no difference in the main with respect to the dangers of ignorance +and the advantages of knowledge between those who hold different +opinions--for it is to be observed, that those who are most +distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to +exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was pleasantly +illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage +with me there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in +alluding to him, for I know that he is not in the room, having got +out far short of Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully +as to the ruinous effects and rapid spread of railways, and was +most pathetic upon the virtues of the slow-going old stage coaches. +Now I, entertaining some little lingering kindness for the road, +made shift to express my concurrence with the old gentleman's +opinion, without any great compromise of principle. Well, we got +on tolerably comfortably together, and when the engine, with a +frightful screech, dived into some dark abyss, like some strange +aquatic monster, the old gentleman said it would never do, and I +agreed with him. When it parted from each successive station, with +a shock and a shriek as if it had had a double-tooth drawn, the old +gentleman shook his head, and I shook mine. When he burst forth +against such new-fangled notions, and said no good could come of +them, I did not contest the point. But I found that when the speed +of the engine was abated, or there was a prolonged stay at any +station, up the old gentleman was at arms, and his watch was +instantly out of his pocket, denouncing the slowness of our +progress. Now I could not help comparing this old gentleman to +that ingenious class of persons who are in the constant habit of +declaiming against the vices and crimes of society, and at the same +time are the first and foremost to assert that vice and crime have +not their common origin in ignorance and discontent. + +The good work, however, in spite of all political and party +differences, has been well begun; we are all interested in it; it +is advancing, and cannot be stopped by any opposition, although it +may be retarded in this place or in that, by the indifference of +the middle classes, with whom its successful progress chiefly +rests. Of this success I cannot entertain a doubt; for whenever +the working classes have enjoyed an opportunity of effectually +rebutting accusations which falsehood or thoughtlessness have +brought against them, they always avail themselves of it, and show +themselves in their true characters; and it was this which made the +damage done to a single picture in the National Gallery of London, +by some poor lunatic or cripple, a mere matter of newspaper +notoriety and wonder for some few days. This, then, establishes a +fact evident to the meanest comprehension--that any given number of +thousands of individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this +country, can pass through the national galleries or museums in +seasons of holiday-making, without damaging, in the slightest +degree, those choice and valuable collections. I do not myself +believe that the working classes ever were the wanton or +mischievous persons they were so often and so long represented to +be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some men take it into +their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact, without being +particular about the premises; and that the idle and the +prejudiced, not wishing to have the trouble of forming opinions for +themselves, take it for granted--until the people have an +opportunity of disproving the stigma and vindicating themselves +before the world. + +Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurred respecting +an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with respect to which a +legend existed that the sculptor hanged himself, because he had +neglected to put a girth to the horse. This story was currently +believed for many years, until it was inspected for altogether a +different purpose, and it was found to have had a girth all the +time. + +But surely if, as is stated, the people are ill-disposed and +mischievous, that is the best reason that can be offered for +teaching them better; and if they are not, surely that is a reason +for giving them every opportunity of vindicating their injured +reputation; and no better opportunity could possibly be afforded +than that of associating together voluntarily for such high +purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment of the +Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any case--nay, in every +case--if we would reward honesty, if we would hold out +encouragement to good, if we would eradicate that which is evil or +correct that which is bad, education--comprehensive, liberal +education--is the one thing needful, and the only effective end. +If I might apply to my purpose, and turn into plain prose some +words of Hamlet--not with reference to any government or party (for +party being, for the most part, an irrational sort of thing, has no +connexion with the object we have in view)--if I might apply those +words to education as Hamlet applied them to the skull of Yorick, I +would say--"Now hie thee to the council-chamber, and tell them, +though they lay it on in sounding thoughts and learned words an +inch thick, to this complexion they must come at last." + + +In answer to a vote of thanks, {7} Mr. Dickens said, at the close +of the meeting - + +"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even--for every effect +which I may have made upon you, the compliment has been amply +returned to me; but at the same time I am as little disposed to say +to you, 'go and sin no more,' as I am to promise for myself that 'I +will never do so again.' So long as I can make you laugh and cry, +I will; and you will readily believe me, when I tell you, you +cannot do too much on your parts to show that we are still cordial +and loving friends. To you, ladies of the Institution, I am deeply +and especially indebted. I sometimes [pointing to the word 'Boz' +in front of the great gallery] think there is some small quantity +of magic in that very short name, and that it must consist in its +containing as many letters as the three graces, and they, every one +of them, being of your fair sisterhood. + +A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for +an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man, sometimes +bowstringing his dependants indiscriminately in his moments of +anger, but burying them in great splendour in his moments of +penitence, that whenever intelligence was brought him of a new plot +or turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry was, 'Who is she?' +meaning that a woman was at the bottom. Now, in my small way, I +differ from that potentate; for when there is any good to be +attained, the services of any ministering angel required, my first +inquiry is, 'Where is she?' and the answer invariably is, 'Here.' +Proud and happy am I indeed to thank you for your generosity - + +'A thousand times, good night; +A thousand times the worse to want your light.' + + + +SPEECH: GARDENERS AND GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852. + + + +[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent +Institution was held on the above date at the London Tavern. The +company numbered more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the +occasion, and an admirable effect was produced by a profuse display +of natural flowers upon the tables and in the decoration of the +room. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in +proposing the toast of the evening, spoke as follows:-] + +For three times three years the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution +has been stimulated and encouraged by meetings such as this, and by +three times three cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous +career. [The cheers were warmly given.] + +Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel for +the plaintiff with nobody on the other side; but even if I had been +placed in that position ninety times nine, it would still be my +duty to state a few facts from the very short brief with which I +have been provided. + +This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During the first +five years of its existence, it was not particularly robust, and +seemed to have been placed in rather a shaded position, receiving +somewhat more than its needful allowance of cold water. In 1843 it +was removed into a more favourable position, and grafted on a +nobler stock, and it has now borne fruit, and become such a +vigorous tree that at present thirty-five old people daily sit +within the shelter of its branches, and all the pensioners upon the +list have been veritable gardeners, or the wives of gardeners. It +is managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the excellent +rule that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteen years, +and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be placed upon the +pensioners' list without election, without canvass, without +solicitation, and as his independent right. I lay very great +stress upon that honourable characteristic of the charity, because +the main principle of any such institution should be to help those +who help themselves. That the Society's pensioners do not become +such so long as they are able to support themselves, is evinced by +the significant fact that the average age of those now upon the +list is seventy-seven; that they are not wasteful is proved by the +fact that the whole sum expended on their relief is but 500 pounds +a-year; that the Institution does not restrict itself to any narrow +confines, is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners come +from all parts of England, whilst all the expenses are paid from +the annual income and interest on stock, and therefore are not +disproportionate to its means. + +Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a most +unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, an Institution which +has for its President a nobleman {8} whose whole possessions are +remarkable for taste and beauty, and whose gardener's laurels are +famous throughout the world. In the list of its vice-presidents +there are the names of many noblemen and gentlemen of great +influence and station, and I have been struck in glancing through +the list of its supporters, with the sums written against the names +of the numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein comprised. I hope +the day will come when every gardener in England will be a member +of the charity. + +The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this +Institution affords. His gains are not great; he knows gold and +silver more as being of the colour of fruits and flowers than by +its presence in his pockets; he is subjected to that kind of labour +which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when old age +comes upon him, the gardener is of all men perhaps best able to +appreciate the merits of such an institution. + +To all indeed, present and absent, who are descended from the first + + +"gardener Adam and his wife," + + +the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture of +flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary +or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager's porch, +sweeps also over the grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain +descends on the just and on the unjust, so it communicates to all +gardeners, both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and +enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man, in developing and +enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is, in some +sort, the gardener of everybody else. + +The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and +all periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace +and men of war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The +most ancient people of the earth had gardens where there is now +nothing but solitary heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded +cities gardens still in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories +and workshops people garden; and even the prisoner is found +gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years of solitary +confinement. Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes and +objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the +world's remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort. + +I will call upon you to drink "Prosperity to the Gardeners' +Benevolent Institution," and I beg to couple with that toast the +name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is +written in all his deeds, and who has communicated to his title and +his riches a lustre which no title and no riches could confer. + +[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:-] + +My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I +could wish there were a closer parallel between myself and the +American aloe. It is particularly agreeable and appropriate to +know that the parents of this Institution are to be found in the +seed and nursery trade; and the seed having yielded such good +fruit, and the nursery having produced such a healthy child, I have +the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of the parents of the +Institution. + +[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:-] + +My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that +its conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always three in +number. Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three +Graces, or to those very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not +know. Those mystic letters are, however, most important, and no +society can have officers of more importance than its Treasurers, +nor can it possibly give them too much to do. + + + +SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853. + + + +[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of +Artists, in Temple Row, Birmingham, a large company assembled to +witness the presentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, +consisting of a silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens +acknowledged the tribute, and the address which accompanied it, in +the following words:-] + +Gentlemen, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, to tender my +acknowledgments to you, and through you, to those many friends of +mine whom you represent, for this honour and distinction which you +have conferred upon me. I can most honestly assure you, that it is +in the power of no great representative of numbers of people to +awaken such happiness in me as is inspired by this token of +goodwill and remembrance, coming to me direct and fresh from the +numbers themselves. I am truly sensible, gentlemen, that my +friends who have united in this address are partial in their +kindness, and regard what I have done with too great favour. But I +may say, with reference to one class--some members of which, I +presume, are included there--that I should in my own eyes be very +unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous feeling which +has been evinced, and this occasion, instead of pleasure, would +give me nothing but pain, if I was unable to assure them, and those +who are in front of this assembly, that what the working people +have found me towards them in my books, I am throughout my life. +Gentlemen, whenever I have tried to hold up to admiration their +fortitude, patience, gentleness, the reasonableness of their +nature, so accessible to persuasion, and their extraordinary +goodness one towards another, I have done so because I have first +genuinely felt that admiration myself, and have been thoroughly +imbued with the sentiment which I sought to communicate to others. + +Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all +price to me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful +specimens of the workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I +assure you, and with the liveliest gratitude. You remember +something, I daresay, of the old romantic stories of those charmed +rings which would lose their brilliance when their wearer was in +danger, or would press his finger reproachfully when he was going +to do wrong. In the very improbable event of my being in the least +danger of deserting the principles which have won me these tokens, +I am sure the diamond in that ring would assume a clouded aspect to +my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze a throb of pain out of +my treacherous heart. But I have not the least misgiving on that +point; and, in this confident expectation, I shall remove my own +old diamond ring from my left hand, and in future wear the +Birmingham ring on my right, where its grasp will keep me in mind +of the good friends I have here, and in vivid remembrance of this +happy hour. + +Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the Society to +whom these rooms belong, that the presentation has taken place in +an atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an apartment decorated +with so many beautiful works of art, among which I recognize before +me the productions of friends of mine, whose labours and triumphs +will never be subjects of indifference to me. I thank those +gentlemen for giving me the opportunity of meeting them here on an +occasion which has some connexion with their own proceedings; and, +though last not least, I tender my acknowledgments to that charming +presence, without which nothing beautiful can be complete, and +which is endearingly associated with rings of a plainer +description, and which, I must confess, awakens in my mind at the +present moment a feeling of regret that I am not in a condition to +make an offer of these testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to +commend me very earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and +to assure them of my affectionate and heartfelt respect. + + +The company then adjourned to Dee's Hotel, where a banquet took +place, at which about 220 persons were present, among whom were +some of the most distinguished of the Royal Academicians. To the +toast of "The Literature of England," Mr. Dickens responded as +follows:- + +Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers in +that great field of literature to which you have pledged the toast, +to thank you for the tribute you have paid to it. Such an honour, +rendered by acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if I +may follow on the same side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) +who lately addressed you, and who has inspired me with a +gratification I can never forget--such an honour, gentlemen, +rendered here, seems to me a two-sided illustration of the position +that literature holds in these latter and, of course, "degenerate" +days. To the great compact phalanx of the people, by whose +industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in +money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many others like it, +have arisen--to that great centre of support, that comprehensive +experience, and that beating heart, literature has turned happily +from individual patrons--sometimes munificent, often sordid, always +few--and has there found at once its highest purpose, its natural +range of action, and its best reward. Therefore it is right also, +as it seems to me, not only that literature should receive honour +here, but that it should render honour, too, remembering that if it +has undoubtedly done good to Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly +done good to it. From the shame of the purchased dedication, from +the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependent +seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke's table to-day, and from the +sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow--from that venality which, +by a fine moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even to a +greater extent than authors, because the statesman entertained a +low belief in the universality of corruption, while the author +yielded only to the dire necessity of his calling--from all such +evils the people have set literature free. And my creed in the +exercise of that profession is, that literature cannot be too +faithful to the people in return--cannot too ardently advocate the +cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have +heard it sometimes said--and what is worse, as expressing something +more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written--that +literature has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated by +being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the case: nor do +I believe that you have made the discovery either. But let a good +book in these "bad" times be made accessible,--even upon an +abstruse and difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate +interest to mankind,--and my life on it, it shall be extensively +bought, read, and well considered. + +Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at +this moment many working men infinitely better versed in +Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the +days of bought-and-sold dedications and dear books. I ask anyone +to consider for himself who, at this time, gives the greatest +relative encouragement to the dissemination of such useful +publications as "Macaulay's History," "Layard's Researches," +"Tennyson's Poems," "The Duke of Wellington's published +Despatches," or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called +minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is +with all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a +lecture upon art--if we had the good fortune to listen to one to- +morrow--by my distinguished friend the President of the Royal +Academy. However small the audience, however contracted the circle +in the water, in the first instance, the people are nearer the +wider range outside, and the Sister Arts, while they instruct them, +derive a wholesome advantage and improvement from their ready +sympathy and cordial response. I may instance the case of my +friend Mr. Ward's magnificent picture; {9} and the reception of +that picture here is an example that it is not now the province of +art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it +cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple,-- +on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery-- +but that it must be imbued with human passions and action, informed +with human right and wrong, and, being so informed, it may +fearlessly put itself upon its trial, like the criminal of old, to +be judged by God and its country. + +Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to +trouble you again. For this time I have only once again to repeat +what I have already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end +with it. I would simply say that I believe no true man, with +anything to tell, need have the least misgiving, either for himself +or his message, before a large number of hearers--always supposing +that he be not afflicted with the coxcombical idea of writing down +to the popular intelligence, instead of writing the popular +intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, he be above it;--and, +provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is in him, +which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed +that he has some dim design of making himself understood. On +behalf of that literature to which you have done so much honour, I +beg to thank you most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most +flattering reception you have given to one whose claim is, that he +has the distinction of making it his profession. + + +[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, "The +Educational Institutions of Birmingham," in the following speech:] + + +I am requested to propose--or, according to the hypothesis of my +friend, Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary character of a walking +advertisement to advertise to you--the Educational Institutions of +Birmingham; an advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure +in calling your attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in +so many words, mention the more prominent of these institutions, +not because your local memories require any prompting, but because +the enumeration implies what has been done here, what you are +doing, and what you will yet do. I believe the first is the King +Edward's Grammar School, with its various branches, and prominent +among them is that most admirable means of training the wives of +working men to be good wives and working wives, the prime ornament +of their homes, and the cause of happiness to others--I mean those +excellent girls' schools in various parts of the town, which, under +the excellent superintendence of the principal, I should most +sincerely desire to see in every town in England. Next, I believe, +is the Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging to the +body of Independents, foremost among whose professors literature is +proud to hail Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest +contributors to the Edinburgh Review. The next is the Queen's +College, which, I may say, is only a newly-born child; but, in the +hands of such an admirable Doctor, we may hope to see it arrive at +a vigorous maturity. The next is the School of Design, which, as +has been well observed by my friend Sir Charles Eastlake, is +invaluable in such a place as this; and, lastly, there is the +Polytechnic Institution, with regard to which I had long ago +occasion to express my profound conviction that it was of +unspeakable importance to such a community as this, when I had the +honour to be present, under the auspices of your excellent +representative, Mr. Scholefield. This is the last of what has been +done in an educational way. They are all admirable in their kind; +but I am glad to find that more is yet doing. A few days ago I +received a Birmingham newspaper, containing a most interesting +account of a preliminary meeting for the formation of a Reformatory +School for juvenile delinquents. You are not exempt here from the +honour of saving these poor, neglected, and wretched outcasts. I +read of one infant, six years old, who has been twice as many times +in the hands of the police as years have passed over his devoted +head. These are the eggs from which gaol-birds are hatched; if you +wish to check that dreadful brood, you must take the young and +innocent, and have them reared by Christian hands. + +Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme for a +new Literary and Scientific Institution, which would be worthy even +of this place, if there was nothing of the kind in it--an +institution, as I understand it, where the words "exclusion" and +"exclusiveness" shall be quite unknown--where all classes may +assemble in common trust, respect, and confidence--where there +shall be a great gallery of painting and statuary open to the +inspection and admiration of all comers--where there shall be a +museum of models in which industry may observe its various sources +of manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, and +arrive at new results--where the very mines under the earth and +under the sea shall not be forgotten, but presented in little to +the inquiring eye--an institution, in short, where many and many of +the obstacles which now inevitably stand in the rugged way of the +poor inventor shall be smoothed away, and where, if he have +anything in him, he will find encouragement and hope. + +I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body of +gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside their individual +prepossessions on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to be +engaged in a design as patriotic as well can be. They have the +intention of meeting in a few days to advance this great object, +and I call upon you, in drinking this toast, to drink success to +their endeavour, and to make it the pledge by all good means to +promote it. + +If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutions in +Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I intend to stop, +merely observing that I have seen within a short walk of this place +one of the most interesting and practical Institutions for the Deaf +and Dumb that has ever come under my observation. I have seen in +the factories and workshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and +regularity, and such great consideration for the workpeople +provided, that they might justly be entitled to be considered +educational too. I have seen in your splendid Town Hall, when the +cheap concerts are going on there, also an admirable educational +institution. I have seen their results in the demeanour of your +working people, excellently balanced by a nice instinct, as free +from servility on the one hand, as from self-conceit on the other. +It is a perfect delight to have need to ask a question, if only +from the manner of the reply--a manner I never knew to pass +unnoticed by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a +great marry more I have not touched upon, and weaving all into one +good fabric, remember how much is included under the general head +of the Educational Institutions of your town. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853. + + + +[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir +Charles Eastlake, proposed as a toast, "The Interests of +Literature," and selected for the representatives of the world of +letters, the Dean of St. Paul's and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean +Milman having returned thanks.] + +Mr Dickens then addressed the President, who, it should be +mentioned, occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered +with crimson velvet, placed just before Stanfield's picture of The +Victory. + +Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and +the honour done him in associating his name with it, said that +those acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was +unable to recognize in this toast the President's usual +disinterestedness; since English literature could scarcely be +remembered in any place, and, certainly, not in a school of art, +without a very distinct remembrance of his own tasteful writings, +to say nothing of that other and better part of himself, which, +unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions. + +If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount +Hardinge), he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief +thanks with one word of reference to the noble picture painted by a +very dear friend of his, which was a little eclipsed that evening +by the radiant and rubicund chair which the President now so +happily toned down, he would beg leave to say that, as literature +could nowhere be more appropriately honoured than in that place, so +he thought she could nowhere feel a higher gratification in the +ties that bound her to the sister arts. He ever felt in that place +that literature found, through their instrumentality, always a new +expression, and in a universal language. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 1, 1853 + + + +[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the +above date, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed as a toast "Anglo-Saxon +Literature," and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction +as a means of awakening attention to the condition of the oppressed +and suffering classes:-] + +"Mr. Dickens replied to this toast in a graceful and playful +strain. In the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast on +the chancery department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the +absence of the Lord Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court +of Chancery, not distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently +not without reference to it. The amount of what he said was, that +the Court had received a great many more hard opinions than it +merited; that they had been parsimoniously obliged to perform a +great amount of business by a very inadequate number of judges; but +that more recently the number of judges had been increased to +seven, and there was reason to hope that all business brought +before it would now be performed without unnecessary delay. + +"Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence; said +he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he trusted now that a suit, +in which he was greatly interested, would speedily come to an end. +I heard a little by-conversation between Mr. Dickens and a +gentleman of the bar, who sat opposite me, in which the latter +seemed to be reiterating the same assertions, and I understood him +to say, that a case not extraordinarily complicated might be got +through with in three months. Mr. Dickens said he was very happy +to hear it; but I fancied there was a little shade of incredulity +in his manner; however, the incident showed one thing, that is, +that the chancery were not insensible to the representations of +Dickens; but the whole tone of the thing was quite good-natured and +agreeable." {10} + + + +SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853. + + + +[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens +on behalf of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, took place on +Tuesday evening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, +where, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two +thousand persons had assembled. The work selected was the +Christmas Carol. The high mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens +enabled him to personate with remarkable force the various +characters of the story, and with admirable skill to pass rapidly +from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to trusting and thankful Bob +Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of Scrooge's nephew, to the +hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe the Ragshop- +keeper's parlour. The reading occupied more than three hours, but +so interested were the audience, that only one or two left the Hall +previously to its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts of +applause attested the successful discharge of the reader's arduous +task. On Thursday evening Mr. Dickens read The Cricket on the +Hearth. The Hall was again well ruled, and the tale, though +deficient in the dramatic interest of the Carol, was listened to +with attention, and rewarded with repeated applause. On Friday +evening, the Christmas Carol was read a second time to a large +assemblage of work-people, for whom, at Mr. Dickens's special +request, the major part of the vast edifice was reserved. Before +commencing the tale, Mr. Dickens delivered the following brief +address, almost every sentence of which was received with loudly +expressed applause.] + +My Good Friends,--When I first imparted to the committee of the +projected Institute my particular wish that on one of the evenings +of my readings here the main body of my audience should be composed +of working men and their families, I was animated by two desires; +first, by the wish to have the great pleasure of meeting you face +to face at this Christmas time, and accompany you myself through +one of my little Christmas books; and second, by the wish to have +an opportunity of stating publicly in your presence, and in the +presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the Institute will, +from the beginning, recognise one great principle--strong in reason +and justice--which I believe to be essential to the very life of +such an Institution. It is, that the working man shall, from the +first unto the last, have a share in the management of an +Institution which is designed for his benefit, and which calls +itself by his name. + +I have no fear here of being misunderstood--of being supposed to +mean too much in this. If there ever was a time when any one class +could of itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of +society--which I greatly doubt--that time is unquestionably past. +It is in the fusion of different classes, without confusion; in the +bringing together of employers and employed; in the creating of a +better common understanding among those whose interests are +identical, who depend upon each other, who are vitally essential to +each other, and who never can be in unnatural antagonism without +deplorable results, that one of the chief principles of a +Mechanics' Institution should consist. In this world a great deal +of the bitterness among us arises from an imperfect understanding +of one another. Erect in Birmingham a great Educational +Institution, properly educational; educational of the feelings as +well as of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham men +contribute; in which all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein all +orders of Birmingham men are faithfully represented--and you will +erect a Temple of Concord here which will be a model edifice to the +whole of England. + +Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans' Committee, +which not long ago considered the establishment of the Institute so +sensibly, and supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat the +gentlemen--earnest I know in the good work, and who are now among +us,--by all means to avoid the great shortcoming of similar +institutions; and in asking the working man for his confidence, to +set him the great example and give him theirs in return. You will +judge for yourselves if I promise too much for the working man, +when I say that he will stand by such an enterprise with the utmost +of his patience, his perseverance, sense, and support; that I am +sure he will need no charitable aid or condescending patronage; but +will readily and cheerfully pay for the advantages which it +confers; that he will prepare himself in individual cases where he +feels that the adverse circumstances around him have rendered it +necessary; in a word, that he will feel his responsibility like an +honest man, and will most honestly and manfully discharge it. I +now proceed to the pleasant task to which I assure you I have +looked forward for a long time. + + +[At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, +and "three cheers, with three times three." As soon as the +enthusiasm of the audience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens +said:-] + + +You have heard so much of my voice since we met to-night, that I +will only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your +regard, that I am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any +little service I have rendered to you I have freely rendered from +my heart; that I hope to become an honorary member of your great +Institution, and will meet you often there when it becomes +practically useful; that I thank you most affectionately for this +new mark of your sympathy and approval; and that I wish you many +happy returns of this great birthday-time, and many prosperous +years. + + + +SPEECH: COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854. + + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary +Dinner in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial +Travellers' Schools, held at the London Tavern on the above date. +Mr. Dickens presided on this occasion, and proposed the toasts.] + +I think it may be assumed that most of us here present know +something about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or +foreign countries, although I dare say some of us have had +experience in that way, but at home, and within the limits of the +United Kingdom. I dare say most of us have had experience of the +extinct "fast coaches," the "Wonders," "Taglionis," and "Tallyhos," +of other days. I daresay most of us remember certain modest +postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, through slush and +mud, to little country towns with no visible population, except +half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women with umbrellas +and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under the gables, +to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I dare +say, if so minded, about our recollections of the "Talbot," the +"Queen's Head," or the "Lion" of those days. We have all been to +that room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not +quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the +cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the +box-coats that hung from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid +us at every turn, like so many human man-traps; where county +members, framed and glazed, were eternally presenting that petition +which, somehow or other, had made their glory in the county, +although nothing else had ever come of it. Where the books in the +windows always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves, and where +the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the night, +and requiring his breakfast at a similarly singular period of the +day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts +of our favourite hotel, wherever it was--its beds, its stables, its +vast amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its +capital dishes, its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we +could recal our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, or +our fraternal regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated +domestic critic once writing of a famous actress, renowned for her +virtue and beauty, gave her the character of being an "eminently +gatherable-to-one's-arms sort of person." Perhaps some one amongst +us has borne a somewhat similar tribute to the mental charms of the +fair deities who presided at our hotels. + +With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no +doubt, equally familiar. We know all about that station to which +we must take our ticket, although we never get there; and the other +one at which we arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile +from the town, where the old road is sure to have been abolished, +and the new road is going to be made--where the old neighbourhood +has been tumbled down, and the new one is not half built up. We +know all about that party on the platform who, with the best +intentions, can do nothing for our luggage except pitch it into all +sorts of unattainable places. We know all about that short +omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger +of the crown of one's hat; and about that fly, whose leading +peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, +how instantaneously the lights of the station disappear when the +train starts, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which +will be an excellent house when the customers come, but which at +present has nothing to offer but a liberal allowance of damp mortar +and new lime. + +I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the +object of increasing your interest in the purpose of this night's +assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns +to appreciate it the more from his wandering. If he has no home, +he learns the same lesson unselfishly by turning to the homes of +other men. He may have his experiences of cheerful and exciting +pleasures abroad; but home is the best, after all, and its +pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, +ladies and gentlemen, every one must be prepared to learn that +commercial travellers, as a body, know how to prize those domestic +relations from which their pursuits so frequently sever them; for +no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing +testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in founding +and maintaining a school for the children of deceased or +unfortunate members of their own body; those children who now +appeal to you in mute but eloquent terms from the gallery. + +It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly +objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its +solid and practical results, that we are here to-night. It is to +roof that building which is to shelter the children of your +deceased friends with one crowning ornament, the best that any +building can have, namely, a receipt stamp for the full amount of +the cost. It is for this that your active sympathy is appealed to, +for the completion of your own good work. You know how to put your +hands to the plough in earnest as well as any men in existence, for +this little book informs me that you raised last year no less a sum +than 8000 pounds, and while fully half of that sum consisted of new +donations to the building fund, I find that the regular revenue of +the charity has only suffered to the extent of 30 pounds. After +this, I most earnestly and sincerely say that were we all authors +together, I might boast, if in my profession were exhibited the +same unity and steadfastness I find in yours. + +I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the +vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of +brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are united +in a common pursuit. You have already recognized those claims so +nobly, that I will not presume to lay them before you in any +further detail. Suffice it to say that I do not think it is in +your nature to do things by halves. I do not think you could do so +if you tried, and I have a moral certainty that you never will try. +To those gentlemen present who are not members of the travellers' +body, I will say in the words of the French proverb, "Heaven helps +those who help themselves." The Commercial Travellers having +helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the visitors who +come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring that aid +in their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from them. +With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, "Success to +the Commercial Travellers' School." + +[In proposing the health of the Army in the Crimea, Mr. Dickens +said:-] + +IT does not require any extraordinary sagacity in a commercial +assembly to appreciate the dire evils of war. The great interests +of trade enfeebled by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed +by it, all the peaceful arts bent down before it, too palpably +indicate its character and results, so that far less practical +intelligence than that by which I am surrounded would be sufficient +to appreciate the horrors of war. But there are seasons when the +evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, are immeasurably +greater, and when a powerful nation, by admitting the right of any +autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds of its own +ruin, and overshadows itself in time to come with that fatal +influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to exercise +over their weaker neighbours. + +Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its +root in English ground from which the yard wand can be made that +will measure--the mine has not its place in English soil that will +supply the material of a pair of scales to weigh the influence that +may be at stake in the war in which we are now straining all our +energies. That war is, at any time and in any shape, a most +dreadful and deplorable calamity, we need no proverb to tell us; +but it is just because it is such a calamity, and because that +calamity must not for ever be impending over us at the fancy of one +man against all mankind, that we must not allow that man to darken +from our view the figures of peace and justice between whom and us +he now interposes. + +Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true +spirits of two countries were really fighting in the cause of human +advancement and freedom--no matter what diplomatic notes or other +nameless botherations, from number one to one hundred thousand and +one, may have preceded their taking the field--if ever there were a +time when noble hearts were deserving well of mankind by exposing +themselves to the obedient bayonets of a rash and barbarian tyrant, +it is now, when the faithful children of England and France are +fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those faithful children are the +admiration and wonder of the world, so gallantly are they +discharging their duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly, +emphatically representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink +the health of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all +possible honours. + + +[In proposing the health of the Treasurer, Mr. Dickens said:-] + + +If the President of this Institution had been here, I should +possibly have made one of the best speeches you ever heard; but as +he is not here, I shall turn to the next toast on my list:- "The +health of your worthy Treasurer, Mr. George Moore," a name which is +a synonym for integrity, enterprise, public spirit, and +benevolence. He is one of the most zealous officers I ever saw in +my life; he appears to me to have been doing nothing during the +last week but rushing into and out of railway-carriages, and making +eloquent speeches at all sorts of public dinners in favour of this +charity. Last evening he was at Manchester, and this evening he +comes here, sacrificing his time and convenience, and exhausting in +the meantime the contents of two vast leaden inkstands and no end +of pens, with the energy of fifty bankers' clerks rolled into one. +But I clearly foresee that the Treasurer will have so much to do +to-night, such gratifying sums to acknowledge and such large lines +of figures to write in his books, that I feel the greatest +consideration I can show him is to propose his health without +further observation, leaving him to address you in his own behalf. +I propose to you, therefore, the health of Mr. George Moore, the +Treasurer of this charity, and I need hardly add that it is one +which is to be drunk with all the honours. + + +[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens rose and said:-] + + +So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both in +fact and in fiction, that I have heard recently of a proposal for +the establishment of a Company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to take +it down. Only one of those travellers, however, has been enabled +to bring Mont Blanc to Piccadilly, and, by his own ability and good +humour, so to thaw its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid +lady may ascend it twice a-day, "during the holidays," without the +smallest danger or fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present +amongst us to-night, is undoubtedly "a traveller." I do not know +whether he takes many orders, but this I can testify, on behalf of +the children of his friends, that he gives them in the most liberal +manner. + +We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also +a traveller, not only in right of his able edition of Goldsmith's +"Traveller," but in right of his admirable Handbook, which proves +him to be a traveller in the right spirit through all the +labyrinths of London. We have also amongst us my friend Horace +Mayhew, very well known also for his books, but especially for his +genuine admiration of the company at that end of the room [Mr. +Dickens here pointed to the ladies gallery], and who, whenever the +fair sex is mentioned, will be found to have the liveliest personal +interest in the conversation. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health of +these three distinguished visitors. They are all admirable +speakers, but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed to me, that on fairly +balancing his own merits as a speaker and a singer, he rather +thinks he excels in the latter art. I have, therefore, yielded to +his estimate of himself, and I have now the pleasure of informing +you that he will lead off the speeches of the other two gentlemen +with a song. Mr. Albert Smith has just said to me in an earnest +tone of voice, "What song would you recommend?" and I replied, +"Galignani's Messenger." Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore beg to +propose the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and +Horace Mayhew, and call on the first-named gentleman for a song. + + + +SPEECH: ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, +WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1855. + + + +I cannot, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception +accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to +compress what I shall address to it within the closest possible +limits. It is more than eighteen hundred years ago, since there +was a set of men who "thought they should be heard for their much +speaking." As they have propagated exceedingly since that time, +and as I observe that they flourish just now to a surprising extent +about Westminster, I will do my best to avoid adding to the numbers +of that prolific race. The noble lord at the head of the +Government, when he wondered in Parliament about a week ago, that +my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated in this +place what the whole country knows perfectly well to be true, and +what no man in it can by possibility better know to be true than +those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the +advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when +he first became premier--I mean that he did officially and +habitually joke, at a time when this country was plunged in deep +disgrace and distress--I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so +much that the man of this age, who has, by his earnest and +adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, +did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come between +the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to +the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. Now, I have some +slight acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, and I +will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if +I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty's servants, I think I +should know where to put my hand on "the comic old gentleman;" nor, +that if I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what +establishment to go to for the tricks and changes; also, for a very +considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in +that contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these +and on other boards, in which the principal objects thrown about +are loaves and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the +reason for these private theatricals, and the reason why, however +ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is +not the faintest present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It +is this:- The public theatricals which the noble lord is so +condescending as to manage are so intolerably bad, the machinery is +so cumbrous, the parts so ill-distributed, the company so full of +"walking gentlemen," the managers have such large families, and are +so bent upon putting those families into what is theatrically +called "first business"--not because of their aptitude for it, but +because they ARE their families, that we find ourselves obliged to +organize an opposition. We have seen the Comedy of Errors played +so dismally like a tragedy that we really cannot bear it. We are, +therefore, making bold to get up the School of Reform, and we hope, +before the play is out, to improve that noble lord by our +performance very considerably. If he object that we have no right +to improve him without his license, we venture to claim that right +in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful piper, +whom we always pay. + +Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, +and as my trade and calling is not associated with politics, +perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I came to be here, +because reasons similar to those which have influenced me may still +be trembling in the balance in the minds of others. I want at all +times, in full sincerity, to do my duty by my countrymen. If _I_ +feel an attachment towards them, there is nothing disinterested or +meritorious in that, for I can never too affectionately remember +the confidence and friendship that they have long reposed in me. +My sphere of action--which I shall never change--I shall never +overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do to- +night. By literature I have lived, and through literature I have +been content to serve my country; and I am perfectly well aware +that I cannot serve two masters. In my sphere of action I have +tried to understand the heavier social grievances, and to help to +set them right. When the Times newspaper proved its then almost +incredible case, in reference to the ghastly absurdity of that vast +labyrinth of misplaced men and misdirected things, which had made +England unable to find on the face of the earth, an enemy one- +twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and ruin of her noble +defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy +silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect +in which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With +shame and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and +this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of +ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us--with little +adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent understanding +of the general mind, in Parliament--with the machinery of +Government and the legislature going round and round, and the +people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if they left it to its +last remaining function of destroying itself, when it had achieved +the destruction of so much that was dear to them--I did and do +believe that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could +possibly take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking of +the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty +to effect a great peaceful constitutional change in the +administration of their own affairs. At such a crisis this +association arose; at such a crisis I joined it: considering its +further case to be--if further case could possibly be needed--that +what is everybody's business is nobody's business, that men must be +gregarious in good citizenship as well as in other things, and that +it is a law in nature that there must be a centre of attraction for +particles to fly to, before any serviceable body with recognised +functions can come into existence. This association has arisen, +and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have heard +in the main but three, which I will now briefly notice. It is said +that it is proposed by this association to exercise an influence, +through the constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not +the least hesitation in saying that I have the smallest amount of +faith in the House of Commons at present existing and that I +consider the exercise of such influence highly necessary to the +welfare and honour of this country. I was reading no later than +yesterday the book of Mr. Pepys, which is rather a favourite of +mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, writing of the House of +Commons, says: + + +"My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest +grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust of +being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he +can see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design." + + +Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many +years after a Reform Bill, the house of Commons is so little +changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens +that bills which cramp and worry the people, and restrict their +scant enjoyments, are so easily passed, and how it happens that +measures for their real interests are so very difficult to be got +through Parliament. I will not analyse the confined air of the +lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases its deadening influences +on the memory of that Honourable Member who was once a candidate +for the honour of your--and my--independent vote and interest. I +will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of +blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on its +lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal +altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of +Shakespeare's Touchstone--the retort courteous--the quip modest-- +the reply churlish--the reproof valiant--the countercheck +quarrelsome--the lie circumstantial and the lie direct--are of +immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the +health, the taxation, and the education, of a whole people. I will +not penetrate into the mysteries of that secret chamber in which +the Bluebeard of Party keeps his strangled public questions, and +with regard to which, when he gives the key to his wife, the new +comer, he strictly charges her on no account to open the door. I +will merely put it to the experience of everybody here, whether the +House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, a +little dim of sight, a little slow of understanding, and whether, +in short, it is not in a sufficiency invalided state to require +close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; +and whether it is not capable of considerable improvement? I +believe that, in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness +and independence, the people must be very watchful and very jealous +of it; and it must have its memory jogged; and be kept awake when +it happens to have taken too much Ministerial narcotic; it must be +trotted about, and must be bustled and pinched in a friendly way, +as is the usage in such cases. I hold that no power can deprive us +of the right to administer our functions as a body comprising +electors from all parts of the country, associated together because +their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, unmeaning +routine, or worn-out conventionalities. + +This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this +Association sets class against class. Is this so? (Cries of +"No.") No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to +reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in opposition those two +words--Aristocracy and People. I am one who can believe in the +virtues and uses of both, and would not on any account deprive +either of a single just right belonging to it. I will use, instead +of these words, the terms, the governors and the governed. These +two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between them, in which +are lying, newly-buried, thousands on thousands of the bravest and +most devoted men that even England ever bred. It is to prevent the +recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, that +great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary +consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so +strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to +bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice +and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! That +is the very parrot prattle that we have so long heard. Try its +justice by the following example:- A respectable gentleman had a +large establishment, and a great number of servants, who were good +for nothing, who, when he asked them to give his children bread, +gave them stones; who, when they were told to give those children +fish, gave them serpents. When they were ordered to send to the +East, they sent to the West; when they ought to have been serving +dinner in the North, they were consulting exploded cookery books in +the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when +required to do anything, and were bringing everything to ruin. At +last the respectable gentleman calls his house steward, and says, +even then more in sorrow than in anger, "This is a terrible +business; no fortune can stand it--no mortal equanimity can bear +it! I must change my system; I must obtain servants who will do +their duty." The house steward throws up his eyes in pious horror, +ejaculates "Good God, master, you are setting class against class!" +and then rushes off into the servants' hall, and delivers a long +and melting oration on that wicked feeling. + +I now come to the third objection, which is common among young +gentlemen who are not particularly fit for anything but spending +money which they have not got. It is usually comprised in the +observation, "How very extraordinary it is that these +Administrative Reform fellows can't mind their own business." I +think it will occur to all that a very sufficient mode of disposing +of this objection is to say, that it is our own business we mind +when we come forward in this way, and it is to prevent it from +being mismanaged by them. I observe from the Parliamentary +debates--which have of late, by-the-bye, frequently suggested to me +that there is this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of +Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the +scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull--I +have observed from the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious +fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and +the counter-check quarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing +the necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced, +whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should have no difficulty +in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know to be true, +and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it +a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not +already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out +for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they +never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, very well +known story, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it that I +will substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I may avoid, +I hope, the sacred wrath of St. Stephen's. Ages ago a savage mode +of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court +of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe +kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of +considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, +and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in +figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book- +keepers, and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official +routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars +of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to +be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the +reign of George III. an inquiry was made by some revolutionary +spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in +existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to +be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected. + +All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of +this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get +these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a +considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, +what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits +of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, +memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, on this mighty subject. The +sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to +any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow +them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who +live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, +and official routine required that they never should be, and so the +order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially +burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the +House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous +sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the +House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of +Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were +called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the +cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; +and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night. + +Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all +obstinate adherence to rubbish which the time has long outlived, is +certain to have in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious +and destructive; and that will some day set fire to something or +other; which, if given boldly to the winds would have been +harmless; but which, obstinately retained, is ruinous. I believe +myself that when Administrative Reform goes up it will be idle to +hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance. The +great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind +our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our +private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for +our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established +as the sun, moon, and stars. To set this right, and to clear the +way in the country for merit everywhere: accepting it equally +whether it be aristocratic or democratic, only asking whether it be +honest or true, is, I take it, the true object of this Association. +This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large numbers +of the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they may +better comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves, and impress +upon others, the common public duty. Also, of which there is great +need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the skirmishers thrown out +from time to time by the Party of Generals, they may see that their +feints and manoeuvres do not oppress the small defaulters and +release the great, and that they do not gull the public with a mere +field-day Review of Reform, instead of an earnest, hard-fought +Battle. I have had no consultation with any one upon the subject, +but I particularly wish that the directors may devise some means of +enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms +than subscribers who have larger resources. I could wish to see +great numbers of them belong to us, because I sincerely believe +that it would be good for the common weal. + +Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard +asked him for a day for his motion, "Let the hon. gentleman find a +day for himself." + + +"Now, in the names of all the gods at once, +Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed +That he is grown so great?" + + +If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing +that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, "First Lord, your +duty it is to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. +See you, who take the responsibility of government, who aspire to +it, live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it +tooth-and-nail when you can get it, see you that no man is left to +find a day for himself. In this old country, with its seething +hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its +crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the day when the +dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head of the +Government failed in his duty in not anticipating it by a brighter +and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord; make a day; work +for a day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in +return may then--not otherwise--find a day for you; a day equally +associated with the contentment of the loyal, patient, willing- +hearted English people, and with the happiness of your Royal +Mistress and her fair line of children." + + + +SPEECH: SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855. + + + +[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol +in the Mechanics' Hall in behalf of the funds of the Institute. + +After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few +gentlemen in Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens for his acceptance +a very handsome service of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a +pair of fish carvers, as some substantial manifestation of their +gratitude to Mr. Dickens for his kindness in coming to Sheffield. +Henceforth the Christmas of 1855 would be associated in his mind +with the name of that gentleman.] + +Mr. Charles Dickens, in receiving the presentation, said, he +accepted with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such +beautiful specimens of Sheffield-workmanship; and he begged to +assure them that the kind observations which had been made by the +Mayor, and the way in which they had been responded to by that +assembly, would never be obliterated from his remembrance. The +present testified not only to the work of Sheffield hands, but to +the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. It was his earnest +desire to do right by his readers, and to leave imaginative and +popular literature associated with the private homes and public +rights of the people of England. The case of cutlery with which he +had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in +his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to +his death to the principles which had earned for him their +approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them +many merry Christmases, and many happy new years. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858. + + + +[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on +Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one hundred and fifty +gentlemen sat down to dinner, in the Freemasons' Hall. Later in +the evening all the seats in the gallery were filled with ladies +interested in the success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal +and other toasts, the Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed "Prosperity +to the Hospital for Sick Children," and said:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--It is one of my rules in life not to believe +a man who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in +children. I hold myself bound to this principle by all kind +consideration, because I know, as we all must, that any heart which +could really toughen its affections and sympathies against those +dear little people must be wanting in so many humanising +experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to be quite an unsafe +monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the assertion down, +whenever I happen to meet with it--which is sometimes, though not +often--as an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel languor +of the hour, and meaning about as much as that knowing social +lassitude, which has used up the cardinal virtues and quite found +out things in general, usually does mean. I suppose it may be +taken for granted that we, who come together in the name of +children and for the sake of children, acknowledge that we have an +interest in them; indeed, I have observed since I sit down here +that we are quite in a childlike state altogether, representing an +infant institution, and not even yet a grown-up company. A few +years are necessary to the increase of our strength and the +expansion of our figure; and then these tables, which now have a +few tucks in them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now +sits so easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us. +Nevertheless, it is likely that even we are not without our +experience now and then of spoilt children. I do not mean of our +own spoilt children, because nobody's own children ever were +spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our particular +friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down after +dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert +to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the +distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is to +assist at those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments +illustrated with imitations and descriptive dialogue which might +not be inaptly called, after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert +Smith, the toilsome ascent of Miss Mary and the eruption +(cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what it is when those +children won't go to bed; we know how they prop their eyelids open +with their forefingers when they will sit up; how, when they become +fractious, they say aloud that they don't like us, and our nose is +too long, and why don't we go? And we are perfectly acquainted +with those kicking bundles which are carried off at last +protesting. An eminent eye-witness told me that he was one of a +company of learned pundits who assembled at the house of a very +distinguished philosopher of the last generation to hear him +expound his stringent views concerning infant education and early +mental development, and he told me that while the philosopher did +this in very beautiful and lucid language, the philosopher's little +boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by dabbling up to +the elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for their +entertainment, having previously anointed his hair with the syrup, +combed it with his fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is +probable that we also have our similar experiences sometimes, of +principles that are not quite practice, and that we know people +claiming to be very wise and profound about nations of men who show +themselves to be rather weak and shallow about units of babies. + +But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to +present to you after this dinner of to-day are not of this class. +I have glanced at these for the easier and lighter introduction of +another, a very different, a far more numerous, and a far more +serious class. The spoilt children whom I must show you are the +spoilt children of the poor in this great city, the children who +are, every year, for ever and ever irrevocably spoilt out of this +breathing life of ours by tens of thousands, but who may in vast +numbers be preserved if you, assisting and not contravening the +ways of Providence, will help to save them. The two grim nurses, +Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children before you, preside +over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their +little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Of the +annual deaths in this great town, their unnatural deaths form more +than one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to +the other class--I shall not ask you on behalf of these children to +observe how good they are, how pretty they are, how clever they +are, how promising they are, whose beauty they most resemble--I +shall only ask you to observe how weak they are, and how like death +they are! And I shall ask you, by the remembrance of everything +that lies between your own infancy and that so miscalled second +childhood when the child's graces are gone and nothing but its +helplessness remains; I shall ask you to turn your thoughts to +THESE spoilt children in the sacred names of Pity and Compassion. + +Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most +humane members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour +among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of +Edinburgh. In the closes and wynds of that picturesque place--I am +sorry to remind you what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus +often are--we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than many +people would believe in a life. Our way lay from one to another of +the most wretched dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out +from the sky, shut out from the air, mere pits and dens. In a room +in one of these places, where there was an empty porridge-pot on +the cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged children +crouching on the bare ground near it--where, I remember as I speak, +that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained and time- +stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the fever which had +shaken everything else there had shaken even it--there lay, in an +old egg-box which the mother had begged from a shop, a little +feeble, wasted, wan, sick child. With his little wasted face, and +his little hot, worn hands folded over his breast, and his little +bright, attentive eyes, I can see him now, as I have seen him for +several years, look in steadily at us. There he lay in his little +frail box, which was not at all a bad emblem of the little body +from which he was slowly parting--there he lay, quite quiet, quite +patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the mother said; he +seldom complained; "he lay there, seemin' to woonder what it was a' +aboot." God knows, I thought, as I stood looking at him, he had +his reasons for wondering--reasons for wondering how it could +possibly come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full +of pain, when he ought to have been as bright and as brisk as the +birds that never got near him--reasons for wondering how he came to +be left there, a little decrepid old man pining to death, quite a +thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy and happy +children playing on the grass under the summer's sun within a +stone's throw of him, as if there were no bright, moving sea on the +other side of the great hill overhanging the city; as if there were +no great clouds rushing over it; as if there were no life, and +movement, and vigour anywhere in the world--nothing but stoppage +and decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence, +more pathetically than I have ever heard anything said by any +orator in my life, "Will you please to tell me what this means, +strange man? and if you can give me any good reason why I should be +so soon, so far advanced on my way to Him who said that children +were to come into His presence and were not to be forbidden, but +who scarcely meant, I think, that they should come by this hard +road by which I am travelling; pray give that reason to me, for I +seek it very earnestly and wonder about it very much;" and to my +mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many a poor child, +sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this London; +many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately and kindly +tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward +circumstances, wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at +all such times I have seen my poor little drooping friend in his +egg-box, and he has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I +have always found him wondering what it meant, and why, in the name +of a gracious God, such things should be! + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not +be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great +compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue +and prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a +mile of this place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where +once, no doubt, blooming children were born, and grew up to be men +and women, and married, and brought their own blooming children +back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other +day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. +In the airy wards into which the old state drawing-rooms and family +bedchambers of that house are now converted are such little +patients that the attendant nurses look like reclaimed giantesses, +and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable Christian ogre. +Grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the rooms are +such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having been +ill. On the doll's beds are such diminutive creatures that each +poor sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking +round, you may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled +over half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one +little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw myself) the whole tin +soldiery of Europe. On the walls of these rooms are graceful, +pleasant, bright, childish pictures. At the bed's heads, are +pictures of the figure which is the universal embodiment of all +mercy and compassion, the figure of Him who was once a child +himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on the +beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out- +patients brought to that house for relief is no fewer than ten +thousand in the compass of one single year. In the room in which +these are received, you may see against the wall a box, on which it +is written, that it has been calculated, that if every grateful +mother who brings a child there will drop a penny into it, the +Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a year by so large a +sum as forty pounds. And you may read in the Hospital Report, with +a glow of pleasure, that these poor women are so respondent as to +have made, even in a toiling year of difficulty and high prices, +this estimated forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this +same Hospital, you may read with what a generous earnestness the +highest and wisest members of the medical profession testify to the +great need of it; to the immense difficulty of treating children in +the same hospitals with grown-up people, by reason of their +different ailments and requirements, to the vast amount of pain +that will be assuaged, and of life that will be saved, through this +Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but among the +prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of children's +illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic mode +of studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst +of all--(for I must present no rose-coloured picture of this place +to you--I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this +Children's Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find +himself perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and +will learn, with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, +so forlornly, so miserably diminutive, compared with this vast +London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be made +better known; I limit myself to saying better known, because I will +not believe that in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, +and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be +well and richly endowed. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment--which +I resolved when I got up not to allow myself--this is the simple +case. This is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not +only on behalf of the thousands of children who annually die in +this great city, but also on behalf of the thousands of children +who live half developed, racked with preventible pain, shorn of +their natural capacity for health and enjoyment. If these innocent +creatures cannot move you for themselves, how can I possibly hope +to move you in their name? The most delightful paper, the most +charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles Lamb +conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter +night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in +their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, +bachelor self, and finds that they were but dream-children who +might have been, but never were. "We are nothing," they say to +him; "less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have +been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore of Lethe, millions of +ages, before we have existence and a name." "And immediately +awaking," he says, "I found myself in my arm chair." The dream- +children whom I would now raise, if I could, before every one of +you, according to your various circumstances, should be the dear +child you love, the dearer child you have lost, the child you might +have had, the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream- +children should hold in its powerful hand one of the little +children now lying in the Child's Hospital, or now shut out of it +to perish. Each of these dream-children should say to you, "O, +help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for my sake!" +Well!--And immediately awaking, you should find yourselves in the +Freemasons' Hall, happily arrived at the end of a rather long +speech, drinking "Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children," +and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish. + + + +SPEECH: EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858. + + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas +Carol in the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the +Philosophical Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the +Lord Provost of Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver +wassail cup. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute as follows:] + +My Lord Provost, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am +deeply sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and +great surprise; and that I thank you cordially with all my heart. +I never have forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the +honour to be a burgess and guild-brother of the Corporation of +Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the first +great public recognition and encouragement I ever received was +bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent city--in this city +so distinguished in literature and so distinguished in the arts. +You will readily believe that I have carried into the various +countries I have since traversed, and through all my subsequent +career, the proud and affectionate remembrance of that eventful +epoch in my life; and that coming back to Edinburgh is to me like +coming home. + +Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice to-night, +that I will not inflict on you the additional task of hearing any +more. I am better reconciled to limiting myself to these very few +words, because I know and feel full well that no amount of speech +to which I could give utterance could possibly express my sense of +the honour and distinction you have conferred on me, or the +heartfelt gratification I derive from this reception. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858. + + + +[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical +Fund, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, at which Thackeray presided, +Mr. Dickens made the following speech:] + +In our theatrical experience as playgoers we are all equally +accustomed to predict by certain little signs and portents on the +stage what is going to happen there. When the young lady, an +admiral's daughter, is left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, +and certain smart spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately +from beneath her feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When +two gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, +and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it +will assume a retrospective biographical character. When any of +the performers who belong to the sea-faring or marauding +professions are observed to arm themselves with very small swords +to which are attached very large hilts, we predict that the affair +will end in a combat. Carrying out the association of ideas, it +may have occurred to some that when I asked my old friend in the +chair to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and I +have him now on my lips. + +The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office which I +hold, are not so frequent or so great as its privileges. He is in +fact a mere walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that +he has no one to love. If this advantage could be added to his +character it would be one of a more agreeable nature than it is, +and his forlorn position would be greatly improved. His duty is to +call every half year at the bankers', when he signs his name in a +large greasy inconvenient book, to certain documents of which he +knows nothing, and then he delivers it to the property man and +exits anywhere. + +He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges to +watch the steady growth of an institution in which he takes great +interest; it is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the +prudence, the goodness, the self-denial, and the excellence of a +class of persons who have been too long depreciated, and whose +virtues are too much denied, out of the depths of an ignorant and +stupid superstition. And lastly, it is one of his privileges +sometimes to be called on to propose the health of the chairman at +the annual dinners of the institution, when that chairman is one +for whose genius he entertains the warmest admiration, and whom he +respects as a friend, and as one who does honour to literature, and +in whom literature is honoured. I say when that is the case, he +feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. From the +earliest days of this institution I have ventured to impress on its +managers, that they would consult its credit and success by +choosing its chairmen as often as possible within the circle of +literature and the arts; and I will venture to say that no similar +institution has been presided over by so many remarkable and +distinguished men. I am sure, however, that it never has had, and +that it never will have, simply because it cannot have, a greater +lustre cast upon it than by the presence of the noble English +writer who fills the chair to-night. + +It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on myself +to flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. Thackeray's +books, and to tell you to observe how full they are of wit and +wisdom, how out-speaking, and how devoid of fear or favour; but I +will take leave to remark, in paying my due homage and respect to +them, that it is fitting that such a writer and such an institution +should be brought together. Every writer of fiction, although he +may not adopt the dramatic form, writes in effect for the stage. +He may never write plays; but the truth and passion which are in +him must be more or less reflected in the great mirror which he +holds up to nature. Actors, managers, and authors are all +represented in this company, and it maybe supposed that they all +have studied the deep wants of the human heart in many theatres; +but none of them could have studied its mysterious workings in any +theatre to greater advantage than in the bright and airy pages of +Vanity Fair. To this skilful showman, who has so often delighted +us, and who has charmed us again to-night, we have now to wish God +speed, and that he may continue for many years {11} to exercise his +potent art. To him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter, God +bless him! + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858. + + + +[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week +of 1853, and on several subsequent occasions, Mr. Dickens had read +the Christmas Carol and the Chimes before public audiences, but +always in aid of the funds of some institution, or for other +benevolent purposes. The first reading he ever gave for his own +benefit took place on the above date, in St. Martin's Hall, (now +converted into the Queen's Theatre). This reading Mr. Dickens +prefaced with the following speech:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--It may perhaps be in known to you that, for +a few years past, I have been accustomed occasionally to read some +of my shorter books, to various audiences, in aid of a variety of +good objects, and at some charge to myself, both in time and money. +It having at length become impossible in any reason to comply with +these always accumulating demands, I have had definitively to +choose between now and then reading on my own account, as one of my +recognised occupations, or not reading at all. I have had little +or no difficulty in deciding on the former course. The reasons +that have led me to it--besides the consideration that it +necessitates no departure whatever from the chosen pursuits of my +life--are threefold: firstly, I have satisfied myself that it can +involve no possible compromise of the credit and independence of +literature; secondly, I have long held the opinion, and have long +acted on the opinion, that in these times whatever brings a public +man and his public face to face, on terms of mutual confidence and +respect, is a good thing; thirdly, I have had a pretty large +experience of the interest my hearers are so generous as to take in +these occasions, and of the delight they give to me, as a tried +means of strengthening those relations--I may almost say of +personal friendship--which it is my great privilege and pride, as +it is my great responsibility, to hold with a multitude of persons +who will never hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is that I +come, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time; and thus +it is that I proceed to read this little book, quite as composedly +as I might proceed to write it, or to publish it in any other way. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 1, 1858. + + + +[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal +Academy, after the health of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray had been +proposed by the President, Sir Charles Eastlake:-] + +Following the order of your toast, I have to take the first part in +the duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you +have paid to literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too +much an interchange of compliments, as it were, between near +relations, to enter into any lengthened expression of our thanks +for the honour you have done us. I feel that it would be changing +this splendid assembly into a sort of family party. I may, +however, take leave to say that your sister, whom I represent, is +strong and healthy; that she has a very great affection for, and an +undying interest in you, and that it is always a very great +gratification to her to see herself so well remembered within these +walls, and to know that she is an honoured guest at your hospitable +board. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, JULY 21, 1858. + + + +[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess's +Theatre, for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal +Dramatic College. Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. +Dickens delivered the following speech:] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--I think I may venture to congratulate you +beforehand on the pleasant circumstance that the movers and +seconders of the resolutions which will be submitted to you will, +probably, have very little to say. Through the Report which you +have heard read, and through the comprehensive address of the +chairman, the cause which brings us together has been so very +clearly stated to you, that it can stand in need of very little, if +of any further exposition. But, as I have the honour to move the +first resolution which this handsome gift, and the vigorous action +that must be taken upon it, necessitate, I think I shall only give +expression to what is uppermost in the general mind here, if I +venture to remark that, many as the parts are in which Mr. Kean has +distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared in one +in which the large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, and +the grace of a gentleman, have been more admirably blended than in +this day's faithful adherence to the calling of which he is a +prosperous ornament, and in this day's manly advocacy of its cause. + +Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is: + +"That the Report of the provisional committee be adopted, and that +this meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully acknowledges, the +gift of five acres of land referred to in the said Report." {12} + +It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this +acceptance and acknowledgment, and that we all know very well that +this generous gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of +every lover of the dramatic art. As it is far too often forgotten +by those who are indebted to it for many a restorative flight out +of this working-day world, that the silks, and velvets, and elegant +costumes of its professors must be every night exchanged for the +hideous coats and waistcoats of the present day, in which we have +now the honour and the misfortune of appearing before you, so when +we do meet with a nature so considerably generous as this donor's, +and do find an interest in the real life and struggles of the +people who have delighted it, so very spontaneous and so very +liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and to admire, we have +no duty left but to "take the goods the gods provide us," and to +make the best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me +to remark, that in this mode of turning a good gift to the highest +account, lies the truest gratitude. + +In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was +speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, the spot upon +which we are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a +crafty and a cruel bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the Grand +Canal of Venice will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very +spot where I now stand dryshod, and that "the quality of mercy" +will be beautifully stated to the Venetian Council by a learned +young doctor from Padua, on these very boards on which we now +enlarge upon the quality of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it +came into my mind to consider how different the real bond of to-day +from the ideal bond of to-night. Now, all generosity, all +forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousies and unworthy +divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, all +selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all +evil,--now all good. Then, a bond to be broken within the compass +of a few--three or four--swiftly passing hours,--now, a bond to be +valid and of good effect generations hence. + +Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this bond, +between this generous gentleman on the one hand, and the united +members of a too often and too long disunited art upon the other, +be you the witnesses. Do you attest of everything that is liberal +and free in spirit, that is "so nominated in the bond;" and of +everything that is grudging, self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that +it is by no sophistry ever to be found there. I beg to move the +resolution which I have already had the pleasure of reading. + + + +SPEECH: MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858. + + + +[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the +Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the +Free-trade Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr. +Dickens presided.] + +It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn +season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice +that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than +pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men +of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have +them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has +this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some +supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest and the vintage, I do +not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of +the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, +each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little or +nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always +addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the +audience to which it was delivered. + +The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to +hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted +circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have +something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all +plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no +little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind +blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to make for +anything outside this hall. + +At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the +words, "Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire." +Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to +present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance +recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary +examination as to the results of my studies. To begin with: the +title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth. +I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, +"Mechanics' Institutions," and "Literary Societies," but they have, +unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body +of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, +which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, which +is seldom paid for, and which takes the name of the mechanics most +grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo +in that place together. + +I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this +title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, "Here's the old +story." But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave +me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in +short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the +old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I +learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one +central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics' +Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no +more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to all how +they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and +one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising +them how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and +object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and +sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes +of excellent books, called "Free Itinerating Libraries." I learned +that these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon +hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible +relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they +are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These and other +like facts lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact, +that no little cluster of working men's cottages can arise in any +Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream +which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its +educational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, +acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even +before it has come into existence. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has +brought me here. No central association at a distance could +possibly do for those working men what this local association does. +No central association at a distance could possibly understand them +as this local association does. No central association at a +distance could possibly put them in that familiar and easy +communication one with another, as that I, man or boy, eager for +knowledge, in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man +or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley twelve miles off, and +should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your +learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine +in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a most +important feature, of this society. + +On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest men, +however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and +maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious +that combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in +time a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that +experience, essential to the success of all combination, is +especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of +experience and of reflection. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable +history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he +has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent +society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and +enterprising members of the local society to submit themselves to +voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of +which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and +invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive +the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. +The most successful of the competitors in the list of these +examinations are now among us, and these little marks of +recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of +giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. + +I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which have +comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, +decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the +French language--in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all +the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly gratified, as to many +of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am +perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had mighty +little to bestow upon myself to-night. And yet it is always to be +observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are +undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual +fight for bread, and whose whole existence, has been a constant +wrestle with + + +"Those twin gaolers of the daring heart - +Low birth and iron fortune." {13} + + +I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these +questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the +business of whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, +the business of whose life is with tools and with machinery. + +Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, +from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and +certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three +of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from +near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and +who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a-night, three nights +a-week, to attend the classes in which they have gained +distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who begin +life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a-week, and the +father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which +he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in +which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys +will appear before you to-night, to take the second-class prize in +chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, +who took a third-class certificate last year at the hands of Lord +Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three +times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who +knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who +has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local +institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, +and working hard all day, who walks six miles a-night, three nights +a-week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a +place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he was +working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four +o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. "The thought of my lads," +he writes in his modest account of himself, "in their peaceful +slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that +if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct +them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty +machines and engines which have made our country, England, pre- +eminent in the world's history." There is a piecer at mule-frames, +who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more +than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is +arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was +taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to +take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it +with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid +and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The +drawing-classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working +blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive +the highest honours of to-night. Well may it be said of that good +blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the +American poet: + + +"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, +Onward through life he goes; +Each morning sees some task begun, +Each evening sees its clause. +Something attempted, something done, +Has earn'd a night's repose." + + +To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local +societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance +from amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable +man, whose history I have read with feelings that I could not +adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I +know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom +weaving until he dropped from fatigue: who began to teach himself +as soon as he could earn five shillings a-week: who is now a +botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire +valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a +collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds: +who is now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in some +respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also +preserved and collected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: +who is worthily the president of his own local Literary +Institution, and who was at his work this time last night as +foreman in a mill. + +So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and +many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for +preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who +gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten +years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation +as "nursing a little child." Nor are these things confined to the +men. The women employed in factories, milliners' work, and +domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, +a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the +women of Preston in particular, have so honourably distinguished +themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable +knowledge of the science of household management and household +economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or +Cheshire, and if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any +lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o'clock in +the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and +should go to Preston in search of a wife. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily +occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the +working of this Association, than any number of speakers could +possibly present to you. Surely the presence among us of these +indefatigable people is the Association's best and most effective +triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to +effort in the future. As its temporary mouth-piece, I would beg to +say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the +prizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart from +them;--can never set itself above them; that their distinction and +success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be +but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would +most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be +further from this Association's mind than the impertinence of +patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it +gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many +striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit +in which they are given, and in which they are received. The +prizes are money prizes, simply because the Institution does not +presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, +know best how to make a little money serviceable--because it would +be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for +them, and because it knows it is given, and knows it is taken, in +perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and, above all, +perfect independence. + +Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective +audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the +hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the +advantages of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of +the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties +rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have +said, and I shall say, nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the +county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, +that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly +abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of +that poor clay image of a parrot, which was once always saying, +without knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge was a +dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the +mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an +English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been--as my friend +Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it--"blasted into space;" and there, as +to this world, is an end of them. + +So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the +first place, let me congratulate you upon the progress which real +mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your +neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and +their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour. +Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some +of which are bestirring themselves in this matter with a gallantry +and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let +me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very +near to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the +visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell of in +figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth +part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved +upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope--do not let us, in the +laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy +and the imagination which equally surround us as a part of the +great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman +into which it changes, always remember those fables tenderly. Let +numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, +and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their +places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co- +exist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those +two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to +mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He +was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging +of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results +of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this +earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the +blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so +let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the +understanding and the imagination, and that, following it +ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its +better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, +has a very limited power indeed, when it informs the head alone; +but when it informs the head and the heart too, it has a power over +life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe. + + + +SPEECH: COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858. + + + +[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle +Hotel, on the occasion of the presentation to Mr. Charles Dickens +of a gold watch, as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his +Christmas Carol, given in December of the previous year, in aid of +the funds of the Coventry Institute. The chair was taken by C. W. +Hoskyns, Esq. Mr. Dickens ackowledged the testimonial in the +following words:] + +Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-chairman, and Gentlemen,--I hope your minds +will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the +rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I +knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all +under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my +acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, +would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would +contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so +earnest, and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the +occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and +good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional +ornament would be almost an impertinence. + +Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how +deeply I feel your kindness. This watch, with which you have +presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary +working at home, and in my wanderings abroad. It shall never be +absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my +future days; and I can assure you that after this night the object +of those labours will not less than before be to uphold the right +and to do good. And when I have done with time and its +measurement, this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have +seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in +various ways, or to elect into what distant regions they shall +roam, it is not only possible, but probable, that this little voice +will be heard scores of years hence, who knows? in some yet +unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating +Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. + +Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts, +I can assure you that the memory of to-night, and of your +picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my +mind, and I can never more hear the lightest mention of the name of +Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual +emotion and unusual attachment. + + +[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr. +Dickens said:] + + +There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions with regard to +farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay +farm; but, however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm +may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of a clay +farmer,--and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturist +which I have to propose. + +In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, +for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it IS, +exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of +years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of +a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. +In the hope that this very rich and teeming individual may speedily +be ploughed up, and that, we shall gather into our barns and store- +houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up when ever +he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure +him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your very +valuable present, I can never forget. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862. + + + +[At a Dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, the +following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the +chair.-] + +Seven or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever +being called upon to fill the chair at an anniversary festival of +the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, and without the +remotest reference to such an occasion, I selected the +administration of that Charity as the model on which I desired that +another should be reformed, both as regarded the mode in which the +relief was afforded, and the singular economy with which its funds +were administered. As a proof of the latter quality during the +past year, the cost of distributing 1,126 pounds among the +recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more +than 100 pounds, inclusive of all office charges and expenses. The +experience and knowledge of those entrusted with the management of +the funds are a guarantee that the last available farthing of the +funds will be distributed among proper and deserving recipients. +Claiming, on my part, to be related in some degree to the +profession of an artist, I disdain to stoop to ask for charity, in +the ordinary acceptation of the term, on behalf of the Artists. In +its broader and higher signification of generous confidence, +lasting trustfulness, love and confiding belief, I very readily +associate that cardinal virtue with art. I decline to present the +artist to the notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as a +strange, unaccountable, moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly in +the street of life to be helped over the road by the crossing- +sweeper; on the contrary, I present the artist as a reasonable +creature, a sensible gentleman, and as one well acquainted with the +value of his time, and that of other people, as if he were in the +habit of going on high 'Change every day. The Artist whom I wish +to present to the notice of the Meeting is one to whom the perfect +enjoyment of the five senses is essential to every achievement of +his life. He can gain no wealth nor fame by buying something which +he never touched, and selling it to another who would also never +touch or see it, but was compelled to strike out for himself every +spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps consumed him. He +must win the battle of life with his own hand, and with his own +eyes, and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, non- +commissioned officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms, +infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I +ask help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a +cripple from his birth, but I ask it as part payment of a great +debt which all sensible and civilised creatures owe to art, as a +mark of respect to art, as a decoration--not as a badge--as a +remembrance of what this land, or any land, would be without art, +and as the token of an appreciation of the works of the most +successful artists of this country. With respect to the society of +which I am the advocate, I am gratified that it is so liberally +supported by the most distinguished artists, and that it has the +confidence of men who occupy the highest rank as artists, above the +reach of reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, +and whose support is above all price. Artists who have obtained +wide-world reputation know well that many deserving and persevering +men, or their widows and orphans, have received help from this +fund, and some of the artists who have received this help are now +enrolled among the subscribers to the Institution. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 20, 1862. + + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as +chairman, at the annual Festival of the Newsvendors' and Provident +Institution, held at the Freemasons' Tavern on the above date.] + +When I had the honour of being asked to preside last year, I was +prevented by indisposition, and I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie +Collins, to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, and made +an excellent speech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that +speech with considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a +strong misgiving that I had better have presided last year with +neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head, rather than preside +this year with my neuralgia all gone and my subject anticipated. +Therefore, I wish to preface the toast this evening by making the +managers of this Institution one very solemn and repentant promise, +and it is, if ever I find myself obliged to provide a substitute +again, they may rely upon my sending the most speechless man of my +acquaintance. + +The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of the +universality of the newsman's calling. Nothing, I think, is left +for me but to imagine the newsman's burden itself, to unfold one of +those wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take +a bird's-eye view of its general character and contents. So, if +you please, choosing my own time--though the newsman cannot choose +his time, for he must be equally active in winter or summer, in +sunshine or sleet, in light or darkness, early or late--but, +choosing my own time, I shall for two or three moments start off +with the newsman on a fine May morning, and take a view of the +wonderful broadsheets which every day he scatters broadcast over +the country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me following the +newsman is, that every day we are born, that every day we are +married--some of us--and that every day we are dead; consequently, +the first thing the newsvendor's column informs me is, that Atkins +has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is +dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the +next column, is that Atkins has grown to be seventeen years old, +and that he has run away; for, at last, my eye lights on the fact +that William A., who is seventeen years old, is adjured immediately +to return to his disconsolate parents, and everything will be +arranged to the satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid he will +never return, simply because, if he had meant to come back, he +would never have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious +character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is only to be +expressed by several disjointed letters, by several figures, and +several stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation +that the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that +the elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the +shoulder of my industrious friend, the newsman, I find there are +great fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, that they +all want a little more stowage, a little more cargo, that they have +a few more berths to let, that they have all the most spacious +decks, that they are all built of teak, and copper-bottomed, that +they all carry surgeons of experience, and that they are all A1 at +Lloyds', and anywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my +friend the newsman, I find I am offered all kinds of house-lodging, +clerks, servants, and situations, which I can possibly or +impossibly want. I learn, to my intense gratification, that I need +never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my +complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; +that if I have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or +Turkish baths, I am told where to get them, and that, if I want an +income of seven pounds a-week, I may have it by sending half-a- +crown in postage-stamps. Then I look to the police intelligence, +and I can discover that I may bite off a human living nose cheaply, +but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a calf from a shop- +window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find that if I +allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of killing an +inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little incident +will not affect the testimonials to my character, but that I shall +be described as a most amiable young man, and as, above all things, +remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and +disposition. Then I turn my eye to the Fine Arts, and, under that +head, I see that a certain "J. O." has most triumphantly exposed a +certain "J. O. B.," which "J. O. B." was remarkable for this +particular ugly feature, that I was requested to deprive myself of +the best of my pictures for six months; that for that time it was +to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for my +courtesy in having my picture most impertinently covered with a wet +blanket. To sum up the results of a glance over my newsman's +shoulder, it gives a comprehensive knowledge of what is going on +over the continent of Europe, and also of what is going on over the +continent of America, to say nothing of such little geographical +regions as India and China. + +Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman's shoulders +from the whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, +that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on +steamboats, railway stations, and at every turn. His profits are +small, he has a great amount of anxiety and care, and no little +amount of personal wear and tear. He is indispensable to +civilization and freedom, and he is looked for with pleasurable +excitement every day, except when he lends the paper for an hour, +and when he is punctual in calling for it, which is sometimes very +painful. I think the lesson we can learn from our newsman is some +new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of +its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent +lesson, some members of the trade originated this society, which +affords them assistance in time of sickness and indigence. The +subscription is infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five +shillings. Looking at the returns before me, the progress of the +society would seem to be slow, but it has only been slow for the +best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The pensions granted +are all obtained from the interest on the funded capital, and, +therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as the Bank. It is +stated that there are several newsvendors who are not members of +this society; but that is true in all institutions which have come +under my experience. The persons who are most likely to stand in +need of the benefits which an institution confers, are usually the +persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too +late. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 11, 1864. + + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at +a public meeting, for the purpose of founding the Shakespeare +Schools, in connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and +delivered the following address:] + +Ladies and gentlemen--Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, +it is the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be +very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come +after him. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has +to be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his duty to +sit and hear speeches with exemplary attention than to stand up to +make them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings +as your business official, to as plain and as short an exposition +as I can possibly give you of the reasons why we come together. + +First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come +together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do +with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble +worshippers of that mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to +take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, however, +the Tercentenary celebration were a hundred years hence, or a +hundred years past, we should still be pursuing precisely the same +object, though we should not pursue it under precisely the same +circumstances. The facts are these: There is, as you know, in +existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic +College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for +veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which +dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the +establishment of schools in connexion with it; and I may venture to +add that this feature of the scheme, when it was explained to him, +was specially interesting to his Royal Highness the late Prince +Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the desire of the promoters +to look forward as well as to look back; to found educational +institutions for the rising generation, as well as to establish a +harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least having +their faces turned towards the setting sun. The leading members of +the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing +necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of +their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, +good-will, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them +in their efforts to help one another. Those efforts were very +powerfully aided by the respected gentleman {14} under whose roof +we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of +seeing me on these boards as I always am to see him here. With +such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and +sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this present time +all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, +completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of them +inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds +are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the +nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. +Webster was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed +towards the establishment of the schools, when, this Tercentenary +celebration being in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the +National Shakespeare Committee their just and reasonable claim to +participate in the results of any subscription for a monument to +Shakespeare. He represented to the committee that the social +recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare's own +art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument +worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that +it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public +good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim +the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to +understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if +the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those +schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited +public support. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, +to find a new self-supporting public school; with this additional +feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of +course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these +schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, +there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of +any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed +simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a +rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast +accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is +fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project of +the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to be +built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their +schools the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the +followers of Shakespeare's art a prominent place in them. With +this view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a +foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars--say, twenty girls +and twenty boys--who shall always receive their education +gratuitously, and who shall always be the children of actors, +actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, +is to be equal to the best existing public school. It is to be +made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it is +to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as +widely, and as cheaply as any existing public school. + +Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are +foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at nearly all our +old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of +our standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great +humanising art, will do this thing for these children, it will at +the same time be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will +unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the +case--and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one--I cannot +make a sorry face about "the poor player." I think it is a term +very much misused and very little understood--being, I venture to +say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players themselves. +Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to +you exceptionally in this wise--that he follows a peculiar and +precarious vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of +accumulating money--that that vocation must, from the nature of +things, have in it many undistinguished men and women to one +distinguished one--that it is not a vocation the exerciser of which +can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn +every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid of his own +face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own +life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is +reason enough to render him some little help in opening for his +children their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, +because it is not often found, except under the pressure of +necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent--which is +always an exceptional case--that the children of actors and +actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need not in the +least fear that by helping to endow these schools they would help +to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the +reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction +and usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish +in that market's over-rich superabundance. + +This project has received the support of the head of the most +popular of our English public schools. On the committee stands the +name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. +You justly admire this liberal spirit, and your admiration--which I +cordially share--brings me naturally to what I wish to say, that I +believe there is not in England any institution so socially liberal +as a public school. It has been called a little cosmos of life +outside, and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life's +worst foibles--for, as far as I know, nowhere in this country is +there so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, to mere +position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boy there is +always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. We +may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the +frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public +schools, I apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has +happened in these later times that objection has been made to +children of dramatic artists in certain little snivelling private +schools--but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the +actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious +liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little hole-and- +corner place of education for their children exclusively, but in +addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to +them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a +public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is +now to be found. + +I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have +endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the +possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an +unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and +there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the +view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is +to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. +Thanking you for the courtesy with which you have heard me, and not +at all doubting that we shall lay a strong foundation of these +schools to-day, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution, +on Mr. Robert Bell. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 9, 1865. + + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of +the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in +proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following +speech.] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--Dr. Johnson's experience of that club, the +members of which have travelled over one another's minds in every +direction, is not to be compared with the experience of the +perpetual president of a society like this. Having on previous +occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to +say, he is again produced, with the same awful formalities, to say +everything about it that he cannot possibly find to say. It struck +me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that +the case of such an ill-starred president is very like that of the +stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday. That unfortunate animal +when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes place, +generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at a cool trot, +venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he +lives, and there subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence, +until he is again brought out to be again followed by exactly the +same field, under exactly the same circumstances, next Easter +Monday. + +The difficulties of the situation--and here I mean the president +and not the stag--are greatly increased in such an instance as this +by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending +solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me--for I have carefully +considered the point--it presents no opening whatever of an +oratorical nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so +called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their +cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the +subject. If its funds were lavished in patronage and show, instead +of being honestly expended in providing small annuities for hard- +working people who have themselves contributed to its funds--if its +management were intrusted to people who could by no possibility +know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, +business, practical hands--if it hoarded when it ought to spend--if +it got by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might +possibly impress you very much by my indignation. If its managers +could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless +condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds--or by +"Tom,"--if its treasurer had run away with the money-box, then I +might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. But I have no +such chance. Just as a nation is happy whose records are barren, +so is a society fortunate that has no history--and its president +unfortunate. I can only assure you that this society continues its +plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it +does a great deal of good at a very small cost, and that the +objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful +working servants of the public--sole ministers of their wants at +untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own +doors, at the street-corners, at every railway train, at every +steam-boat; through the agency of every establishment and the +tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as master or as +man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, while +their trouble and responsibility are very great. + +The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that +wonderful engine--the newspaper press. Still I think we all know +very well that they are to the fountain-head what a good service of +water pipes is to a good water supply. Just as a goodly store of +water at Watford would be a tantalization to thirsty London if it +were not brought into town for its use, so any amount of news +accumulated at Printing-house Square, or Fleet Street, or the +Strand, would be if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in +its dissemination. + +We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every-day life, that +"We never know the value of anything until we lose it." Let us try +the newsvendors by the test. A few years ago we discovered one +morning that there was a strike among the cab-drivers. Now, let us +imagine a strike of newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in vain +for the newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying +to know the shipping news, the commercial news, the foreign news, +the legal news, the criminal news, the dramatic news. Imagine the +paralysis on all the provincial exchanges; the silence and +desertion of all the newsmen's exchanges in London. Imagine the +circulation of the blood of the nation and of the country standing +still,--the clock of the world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great +Reuter--whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the +side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, +bell and wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear--think +how even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, +and how they would become mere nothing without the activity and +honesty which catch up the threads and stitches of the electric +needle, and scatter them over the land. + +It is curious to consider--and the thought occurred to me this day, +when I was out for a stroll pondering over the duties of this +evening, which even then were looming in the distance, but not +quite so far off as I could wish--I found it very curious to +consider that though the newsman must be allowed to be a very +unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, or what-not +conventional messenger from the clouds, and although we must allow +that he is of this earth, and has a good deal of it on his boots, +still that he has two very remarkable characteristics, to which +none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claim. +One is that he is always the messenger of civilization; the other +that he is at least equally so--not only in what he brings, but in +what he ceases to bring. Thus the time was, and not so many years +ago either, when the newsman constantly brought home to our doors-- +though I am afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened-- +the most terrific accounts of murders, of our fellow-creatures +being publicly put to death for what we now call trivial offences, +in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. At +the same time the newsman regularly brought to us the infliction of +other punishments, which were demoralising to the innocent part of +the community, while they did not operate as punishments in +deterring offenders from the perpetration of crimes. In those same +days, also, the newsman brought to us daily accounts of a regularly +accepted and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with +chains, littering them down on straw, starving them on bread and +water, damaging their clothes, and making periodical exhibitions of +them at a small charge; and that on a Sunday one of our public +resorts was a kind of demoniacal zoological gardens. They brought +us accounts at the same time of some damage done to the machinery +which was destined to supply the operative classes with employment. +In the same time they brought us accounts of riots for bread, which +were constantly occurring, and undermining society and the state; +of the most terrible explosions of class against class, and of the +habitual employment of spies for the discovery--if not for the +origination--of plots, in which both sides found in those days some +relief. In the same time the same newsmen were apprising us of a +state of society all around us in which the grossest sensuality and +intemperance were the rule; and not as now, when the ignorant, the +wicked, and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious exceptions--a +state of society in which the professional bully was rampant, and +when deadly duels were daily fought for the most absurd and +disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceased to tell us of. +This state of society has discontinued in England for ever; and +when we remember the undoubted truth, that the change could never +have been effected without the aid of the load which the newsman +carries, surely it is not very romantic to express the hope on his +behalf that the public will show to him some little token of the +sympathetic remembrance which we are all of us glad to bestow on +the bearers of happy tidings--the harbingers of good news. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am +coming to a conclusion; for that conclusion I have a precedent. +You all of you know how pleased you are on your return from a +morning's walk to learn that the collector has called. Well, I am +the collector for this district, and I hope you will bear in mind +that I have respectfully called. Regarding the institution on +whose behalf I have presented myself, I need only say technically +two things. First, that its annuities are granted out of its +funded capital, and therefore it is safe as the Bank; and, +secondly, that they are attainable by such a slight exercise of +prudence and fore-thought, that a payment of 25s. extending over a +period of five years, entitles a subscriber--if a male--to an +annuity of 16 pounds a-year, and a female to 12 pounds a-year. +Now, bear in mind that this is an institution on behalf of which +the collector has called, leaving behind his assurance that what +you can give to one of the most faithful of your servants shall be +well bestowed and faithfully applied to the purposes to which you +intend them, and to those purposes alone. + + + +SPEECH: NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND.--LONDON, MAY 20, 1865. + + + +[At the second annual dinner of the Institution, held at the +Freemasons' Tavern, on Saturday, the 20th May, 1865, the following +speech was delivered by the chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in +proposing the toast of the evening:] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--When a young child is produced after dinner +to be shown to a circle of admiring relations and friends, it may +generally be observed that their conversation--I suppose in an +instinctive remembrance of the uncertainty of infant life--takes a +retrospective turn. As how much the child has grown since the last +dinner; what a remarkably fine child it is, to have been born only +two or three years ago, how much stronger it looks now than before +it had the measles, and so forth. When a young institution is +produced after dinner, there is not the same uncertainty or +delicacy as in the case of the child, and it may be confidently +predicted of it that if it deserve to live it will surely live, and +that if it deserve to die it will surely die. The proof of desert +in such a case as this must be mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, +in what the society means to do with its money; secondly, in the +extent to which it is supported by the class with whom it +originated, and for whose benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in +the power of its hold upon the public. I add this lastly, because +no such institution that ever I heard of ever yet dreamed of +existing apart from the public, or ever yet considered it a +degradation to accept the public support. + +Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its money is +to grant relief to members in want or distress, and to the widows, +families, parents, or other near relatives of deceased members in +right of a moderate provident annual subscription--commutable, I +observe, for a moderate provident life subscription--and its +members comprise the whole paid class of literary contributors to +the press of the United Kingdom, and every class of reporters. The +number of its members at this time last year was something below +100. At the present time it is somewhat above 170, not including +30 members of the press who are regular subscribers, but have not +as yet qualified as regular members. This number is steadily on +the increase, not only as regards the metropolitan press, but also +as regards the provincial throughout the country. I have observed +within these few days that many members of the press at Manchester +have lately at a meeting expressed a strong brotherly interest in +this Institution, and a great desire to extend its operations, and +to strengthen its hands, provided that something in the independent +nature of life assurance and the purchase of deferred annuities +could be introduced into its details, and always assuming that in +it the metropolis and the provinces stand on perfectly equal +ground. This appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that I +can hardly have a doubt of a response on the part of the managers, +or of the beneficial and harmonious results. It only remains to +add, on this head of desert, the agreeable circumstance that out of +all the money collected in aid of the society during the last year +more than one-third came exclusively from the press. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim--the last +point of desert--the hold upon the public--I think I may say that +probably not one single individual in this great company has failed +to-day to see a newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something +derived from a newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her +yesterday. Of all those restless crowds that have this day +thronged the streets of this enormous city, the same may be said as +the general gigantic rule. It may be said almost equally, of the +brightest and the dullest, the largest and the least provincial +town in the empire; and this, observe, not only as to the active, +the industrious, and the healthy among the population, but also to +the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and the deaf and dumb. Now, if +the men who provide this all-pervading presence, this wonderful, +ubiquitous newspaper, with every description of intelligence on +every subject of human interest, collected with immense pains and +immense patience, often by the exercise of a laboriously-acquired +faculty united to a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the +night, at the sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from +the mental strain) by the constant overtasking of the two most +delicate of the senses, sight and hearing--I say, if the men who, +through the newspapers, from day to day, or from night to night, or +from week to week, furnish the public with so much to remember, +have not a righteous claim to be remembered by the public in +return, then I declare before God I know no working class of the +community who have. + +It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly as +this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the extraordinary +combination of remarkable qualities involved in the production of +any newspaper. But assuming the majority of this associated body +to be composed of reporters, because reporters, of one kind or +other, compose the majority of the literary staff of almost every +newspaper that is not a compilation, I would venture to remind you, +if I delicately may, in the august presence of members of +Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to the reporters if it +were only for their skill in the two great sciences of condensation +and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an Imperial +Parliament, however popularly constituted, under however glorious a +constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr. +Johnson, in one of his violent assertions, declared that "the man +who was afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir." By no means +binding myself to this opinion--though admitting that the man who +is afraid of a newspaper will generally be found to be rather +something like it, I must still freely own that I should approach +my Parliamentary debate with infinite fear and trembling if it were +so unskilfully served up for my breakfast. Ever since the time +when the old man and his son took their donkey home, which were the +old Greek days, I believe, and probably ever since the time when +the donkey went into the ark--perhaps he did not like his +accommodation there--but certainly from that time downwards, he has +objected to go in any direction required of him--from the remotest +periods it has been found impossible to please everybody. + +I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution +has been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freest +discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour +but what it can win, it has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to +urge against objection. No institution conceived in perfect +honesty and good faith has a right to object to being questioned to +any extent, and any institution so based must be in the end the +better for it. Moreover, that this society has been questioned in +quarters deserving of the most respectful attention I take to be an +indisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that respectful +attention, and I have come out of the discussion to where you see +me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded by institutions +between which and this I can descry no difference. The painters' +art has four or five such institutions. The musicians' art, so +generously and charmingly represented here, has likewise several +such institutions. In my own art there is one, concerning the +details of which my noble friend the president of the society and +myself have torn each other's hair to a considerable extent, and +which I would, if I could, assimilate more nearly to this. In the +dramatic art there are four, and I never yet heard of any objection +to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases of some famous +actors of large gains, who having through the whole period of their +successes positively refused to establish a right in them, became, +in their old age and decline, repentant suppliants for their +bounty. Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is +objectionable because a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might +report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in +little? Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it +is to be observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate +reporter under pretty much the same suspicion--apart from this +consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper +offices that every such man is reported according to the position +he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force and +weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to be among +the members of this society one so very foolish to his brethren, +and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to abuse his +trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with +journalism, whether they believe it possible that any newspaper so +ill-conducted as to fail instantly to detect him could possibly +exist as a thriving enterprise for one single twelvemonth? No, +ladies and gentlemen, the blundering stupidity of such an offence +would have no chance against the acute sagacity of newspaper +editors. But I will go further, and submit to you that its +commission, if it be to be dreaded at all, is far more likely on +the part of some recreant camp-follower of a scattered, disunited, +and half-recognized profession, than when there is a public opinion +established in it, by the union of all classes of its members for +the common good: the tendency of which union must in the nature of +things be to raise the lower members of the press towards the +higher, and never to bring the higher members to the lower level. + +I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing words that I feel a +desire to say in remembrance of some circumstances, rather special, +attending my present occupation of this chair, to give those words +something of a personal tone. I am not here advocating the case of +a mere ordinary client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I +hold a brief to-night for my brothers. I went into the gallery of +the House of Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy +not eighteen, and I left it--I can hardly believe the inexorable +truth--nigh thirty years ago. I have pursued the calling of a +reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren at home +in England here, many of my modern successors, can form no adequate +conception. I have often transcribed for the printer, from my +shorthand notes, important public speeches in which the strictest +accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a +young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by +the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping +through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the +then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time +I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle yard there to identify, +for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once "took," as +we used to call it, an election speech of my noble friend Lord +Russell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the +vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such a pelting +rain, that I remember two goodnatured colleagues, who chanced to be +at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my notebook, after the +manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have +worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old +gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by +standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, +where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep--kept in +waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning +home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting +press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost +every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, +in my time, belated on miry by-roads, towards the small hours, +forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheelless carriage, with +exhausted horses and drunken postboys, and have got back in time +for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by +the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the +broadest of hearts I ever knew. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an +assurance to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of +that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity +and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my breast. +Whatever little cunning of hand or head I took to it, or acquired +in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe I could resume it +to-morrow, very little the worse from long disuse. To this present +year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a +dull speech, the phenomenon does occur--I sometimes beguile the +tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, +old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find my hand +going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it all. +Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what I know; as a +confirmation of my undying interest in this old calling. Accept +them as a proof that my feeling for the location of my youth is not +a sentiment taken up to-night to be thrown away to-morrow--but is a +faithful sympathy which is a part of myself. I verily believe--I +am sure--that if I had never quitted my old calling I should have +been foremost and zealous in the interests of this Institution, +believing it to be a sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies +and gentlemen, I am to propose to you to drink "Prosperity to the +Newspaper Press Fund," with which toast I will connect, as to its +acknowledgment, a name that has shed new brilliancy on even the +foremost newspaper in the world--the illustrious name of Mr. +Russell. + + + +SPEECH: KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865. + + + +[On the above date the members of the "Guild of Literature and Art" +proceeded to the neighbourhood of Stevenage, near the magnificent +seat of the President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built +in the Gothic style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. +After their survey, the party drove to Knebworth to partake of the +hospitality of Lord Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of the +guests, proposed the health of the host in the following words:] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--It was said by a very sagacious person, +whose authority I am sure my friend of many years will not impugn, +seeing that he was named Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and +philosopher of Paul Clifford--it was said by that remarkable man, +"Life is short, and why should speeches be long?" An aphorism so +sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in the +circumstances in which we are placed, with this delicious weather +and such charming gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on the +present occasion; and the rather so because the speech of my friend +was exhaustive of the subject, as his speeches always are, though +not in the least exhaustive of his audience. In thanking him for +the toast which he has done us the honour to propose, allow me to +correct an error into which he has fallen. Allow me to state that +these houses never could have been built but for his zealous and +valuable co-operation, and also that the pleasant labour out of +which they have arisen would have lost one of its greatest charms +and strongest impulses, if it had lost his ever ready sympathy with +that class in which he has risen to the foremost rank, and of which +he is the brightest ornament. + +Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say, +on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we +shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be +placed under any social disadvantage. They will be invited to +occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of the high +respect in which they are held by their fellow-workers. As artists +I hope they will often exercise their calling within those walls +for the general advantage; and they will always claim, on equal +terms, the hospitality of their generous neighbour. + +Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelings of my +brothers and sisters in literature in proposing "Health, long life, +and prosperity to our distinguished host." Ladies and gentlemen, +you know very well that when the health, life, and beauty now +overflowing these halls shall have fled, crowds of people will come +to see the place where he lived and wrote. Setting aside the +orator and statesman--for happily we know no party here but this +agreeable party--setting aside all, this you know very well, that +this is the home of a very great man whose connexion with +Hertfordshire every other county in England will envy for many long +years to come. You know that when this hall is dullest and +emptiest you can make it when you please brightest and fullest by +peopling it with the creations of his brilliant fancy. Let us all +wish together that they may be many more--for the more they are the +better it will be, and, as he always excels himself, the better +they will be. I ask you to listen to their praises and not to +mine, and to let them, not me, propose his health. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866. + + + +[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as Chairman at the annual +dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Fund, at Willis's +Rooms, where he made the following speech:] + +Ladies, before I couple you with the gentlemen, which will be at +least proper to the inscription over my head (St. Valentine's day)- +-before I do so, allow me, on behalf of my grateful sex here +represented, to thank you for the great pleasure and interest with +which your gracious presence at these festivals never fails to +inspire us. There is no English custom which is so manifestly a +relic of savage life as that custom which usually excludes you from +participation in similar gatherings. And although the crime +carries its own heavy punishment along with it, in respect that it +divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornament and of its +most fascinating charm, still the offence is none the less to be +severely reprehended on every possible occasion, as outraging +equally nature and art. I believe that as little is known of the +saint whose name is written here as can well be known of any saint +or sinner. We, your loyal servants, are deeply thankful to him for +having somehow gained possession of one day in the year--for +having, as no doubt he has, arranged the almanac for 1866-- +expressly to delight us with the enchanting fiction that we have +some tender proprietorship in you which we should scarcely dare to +claim on a less auspicious occasion. Ladies, the utmost devotion +sanctioned by the saint we beg to lay at your feet, and any little +innocent privileges to which we may be entitled by the same +authority we beg respectfully but firmly to claim at your hands. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to inform you that I +am going to propose "Prosperity to the Dramatic, Musical, and +Equestrian Sick Fund Association," and, further, that I should be +going to ask you actively to promote that prosperity by liberally +contributing to its funds, if that task were not reserved for a +much more persuasive speaker. But I rest the strong claim of the +society for its useful existence and its truly charitable functions +on a very few words, though, as well as I can recollect, upon +something like six grounds. First, it relieves the sick; secondly, +it buries the dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of the +profession to journey to accept new engagements whenever they find +themselves stranded in some remote, inhospitable place, or when, +from other circumstances, they find themselves perfectly crippled +as to locomotion for want of money; fourthly, it often finds such +engagements for them by acting as their honest, disinterested +agent; fifthly, it is its principle to act humanely upon the +instant, and never, as is too often the case within my experience, +to beat about the bush till the bush is withered and dead; lastly, +the society is not in the least degree exclusive, but takes under +its comprehensive care the whole range of the theatre and the +concert-room, from the manager in his room of state, or in his +caravan, or at the drum-head--down to the theatrical housekeeper, +who is usually to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, or +down to the hall porter, who passes his life in a thorough draught- +-and, to the best of my observation, in perpetually interrupted +endeavours to eat something with a knife and fork out of a basin, +by a dusty fire, in that extraordinary little gritty room, upon +which the sun never shines, and on the portals of which are +inscribed the magic words, "stage-door." + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers its benefits +sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by way of gift; sometimes by +way of assurance at very low premiums; sometimes to members, +oftener to non-members; always expressly, remember, through the +hands of a secretary or committee well acquainted with the wants of +the applicants, and thoroughly versed, if not by hard experience at +least by sympathy, in the calamities and uncertainties incidental +to the general calling. One must know something of the general +calling to know what those afflictions are. A lady who had been +upon the stage from her earliest childhood till she was a blooming +woman, and who came from a long line of provincial actors and +actresses, once said to me when she was happily married; when she +was rich, beloved, courted; when she was mistress of a fine house-- +once said to me at the head of her own table, surrounded by +distinguished guests of every degree, "Oh, but I have never +forgotten the hard time when I was on the stage, and when my baby +brother died, and when my poor mother and I brought the little baby +from Ireland to England, and acted three nights in England, as we +had acted three nights in Ireland, with the pretty creature lying +upon the only bed in our lodging before we got the money to pay for +its funeral." + +Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to this hour; +but, happily, at this day and in this hour this association has +arisen to be the timely friend of such great distress. + +It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fall into +these straits. Struggling artists must necessarily change from +place to place, and thus it frequently happens that they become, as +it were, strangers in every place, and very slight circumstances--a +passing illness, the sickness of the husband, wife, or child, a +serious town, an anathematising expounder of the gospel of +gentleness and forbearance--any one of these causes may often in a +few hours wreck them upon a rock in the barren ocean; and then, +happily, this society, with the swift alacrity of the life-boat, +dashes to the rescue, and takes them off. Looking just now over +the last report issued by this society, and confining my scrutiny +to the head of illness alone, I find that in one year, I think, 672 +days of sickness had been assuaged by its means. In nine years, +which then formed the term of its existence, as many as 5,500 and +odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and odd days of sickness, +this is a very serious sum, but add the nights! Add the nights-- +those long, dreary hours in the twenty-four when the shadow of +death is darkest, when despondency is strongest, and when hope is +weakest, before you gauge the good that is done by this +institution, and before you gauge the good that really will be done +by every shilling that you bestow here to-night. Add, more than +all, that the improvidence, the recklessness of the general +multitude of poor members of this profession, I should say is a +cruel, conventional fable. Add that there is no class of society +the members of which so well help themselves, or so well help each +other. Not in the whole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and +York Minster, not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange, +not in the whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the +Inns of Court, not in the College of Physicians, not in the College +of Surgeons, can there possibly be found more remarkable instances +of uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of the +generous remembrance of the claims of kindred and professional +brotherhood, than will certainly be found in the dingiest and +dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid theatre--even in the +raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by weather. + +I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering +actors when I address them as one of their trustees at their +General Fund dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody, unless it be +sometimes myself; but, in such a company as the present, I always +feel it my manful duty to bear my testimony to this fact--first, +because it is opposed to a stupid, unfeeling libel; secondly, +because my doing so may afford some slight encouragement to the +persons who are unjustly depreciated; and lastly, and most of all, +because I know it is the truth. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what we +professionally call "ring down" on these remarks. If you, such +members of the general public as are here, will only think the +great theatrical curtain has really fallen and been taken up again +for the night on that dull, dark vault which many of us know so +well; if you will only think of the theatre or other place of +entertainment as empty; if you will only think of the "float," or +other gas-fittings, as extinguished; if you will only think of the +people who have beguiled you of an evening's care, whose little +vanities and almost childish foibles are engendered in their +competing face to face with you for your favour--surely it may be +said their feelings are partly of your making, while their virtues +are all their own. If you will only do this, and follow them out +of that sham place into the real world, where it rains real rain, +snows real snow, and blows real wind; where people sustain +themselves by real money, which is much harder to get, much harder +to make, and very much harder to give away than the pieces of +tobacco-pipe in property bags--if you will only do this, and do it +in a really kind, considerate spirit, this society, then certain of +the result of the night's proceedings, can ask no more. I beg to +propose to you to drink "Prosperity to the Dramatic, Equestrian, +and Musical Sick Fund Association." + + +[Mr. Dickens, in proposing the next toast, said:-] + + +Gentlemen: as I addressed myself to the ladies last time, so I +address you this time, and I give you the delightful assurance that +it is positively my last appearance but one on the present +occasion. A certain Mr. Pepys, who was Secretary for the Admiralty +in the days of Charles II., who kept a diary well in shorthand, +which he supposed no one could read, and which consequently remains +to this day the most honest diary known to print--Mr. Pepys had two +special and very strong likings, the ladies and the theatres. But +Mr. Pepys, whenever he committed any slight act of remissness, or +any little peccadillo which was utterly and wholly untheatrical, +used to comfort his conscience by recording a vow that he would +abstain from the theatres for a certain time. In the first part of +Mr. Pepys' character I have no doubt we fully agree with him; in +the second I have no doubt we do not. + +I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembrance of a passage +in his diary that I was reading the other night, from which it +appears that he was not only curious in plays, but curious in +sermons; and that one night when he happened to be walking past St. +Dunstan's Church, he turned, went in, and heard what he calls "a +very edifying discourse;" during the delivery of which discourse, +he notes in his diary--"I stood by a pretty young maid, whom I did +attempt to take by the hand." But he adds--"She would not; and I +did perceive that she had pins in her pocket with which to prick me +if I should touch her again--and was glad that I spied her design." +Afterwards, about the close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. +Pepys found himself near another pretty, fair young maid, who would +seem upon the whole to have had no pins, and to have been more +impressible. + +Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest to you is, +that we have been this evening in St. James's much more timid than +Mr. Pepys was in St. Dunstan's, and that we have conducted +ourselves very much better. As a slight recompense to us for our +highly meritorious conduct, and as a little relief to our over- +charged hearts, I beg to propose that we devote this bumper to +invoking a blessing on the ladies. It is the privilege of this +society annually to hear a lady speak for her own sex. Who so +competent to do this as Mrs. Stirling? Surely one who has so +gracefully and captivatingly, with such an exquisite mixture of +art, and fancy, and fidelity, represented her own sex in +innumerable charities, under an infinite variety of phases, cannot +fail to represent them well in her own character, especially when +it is, amidst her many triumphs, the most agreeable of all. I beg +to propose to you "The Ladies," and I will couple with that toast +the name of Mrs. Stirling. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866. + + + +[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Annual +Festival of the Royal General Theatrical Fund, held at the +Freemasons' Tavern, in proposing the health of the Lord Mayor (Sir +Benjamin Phillips), who occupied the chair.] + +Gentlemen, in my childish days I remember to have had a vague but +profound admiration for a certain legendary person called the Lord +Mayor's fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual +capacity of that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I +really regarded him with feelings approaching to absolute +veneration, because my nurse informed me on every gastronomic +occasion that the Lord Mayor's fool liked everything that was good. +You will agree with me, I have no doubt, that if this +discriminating jester had existed at the present time he could not +fail to have liked his master very much, seeing that so good a Lord +Mayor is very rarely to be found, and that a better Lord Mayor +could not possibly be. + +You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about to propose to +you to drink the health of the right honourable gentleman in the +chair. As one of the Trustees of the General Theatrical Fund, I +beg officially to tender him my best thanks for lending the very +powerful aid of his presence, his influence, and his personal +character to this very deserving Institution. As his private +friends we ventured to urge upon him to do us this gracious act, +and I beg to assure you that the perfect simplicity, modesty, +cordiality, and frankness with which he assented, enhanced the gift +one thousand fold. I think it must also be very agreeable to a +company like this to know that the President of the night is not +ceremoniously pretending, "positively for this night only," to have +an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough +acquaintance with it, and that he has a living and discerning +knowledge of the merits of the great old actors. It is very +pleasant to me to remember that the Lord Mayor and I once beguiled +the tedium of a journey by exchanging our experiences upon this +subject. I rather prided myself on being something of an old +stager, but I found the Lord Mayor so thoroughly up in all the +stock pieces, and so knowing and yet so fresh about the merits of +those who are most and best identified with them, that I readily +recognised in him what would be called in fistic language, a very +ugly customer--one, I assure you, by no means to be settled by any +novice not in thorough good theatrical training. + +Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancy that when +the giants in Guildhall hear the clock strike one, they come down +to dinner. Similarly, when the City of London shall hear but one +single word in just disparagement of its present Lord Mayor, +whether as its enlightened chief magistrate, or as one of its +merchants, or as one of its true gentlemen, he will then descend +from the high personal place which he holds in the general honour +and esteem. Until then he will remain upon his pedestal, and my +private opinion, between ourselves, is that the giants will come +down long before him. + +Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the Lord Mayor +made his truly remarkable, and truly manly, and unaffected speech, +I could not but be struck by the odd reversal of the usual +circumstances at the Mansion House, which he presented to our view, +for whereas it is a very common thing for persons to be brought +tremblingly before the Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor presented himself +as being brought tremblingly before us. I hope that the result may +hold still further, for whereas it is a common thing for the Lord +Mayor to say to a repentant criminal who does not seem to have much +harm in him, "let me never see you here again," so I would propose +that we all with one accord say to the Lord Mayor, "Let us by all +means see you here again on the first opportunity." Gentlemen, I +beg to propose to you to drink, with all the honours, "The health +of the right hon. the Lord Mayor." + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 7, 1866. + + + +[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs dining together at +the London Tavern, on the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of +the Nautilus Rowing Club, occupied the chair. The Speech that +follows was made in proposing "Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of +London." Mr. Dickens said that:-] + +He could not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the +amateur rowing clubs on the Thames were in the early days of his +noviciate; not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. +He could not get on in the beginning without being a pupil under an +anomalous creature called a "fireman waterman," who wore an +eminently tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of which +it might be said that if it was less adapted for one thing than +another, that thing was fire. He recollected that this gentleman +had on some former day won a King's prize wherry, and they used to +go about in this accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing all the +hard work, while the fireman drank all the beer. The river was +very much clearer, freer, and cleaner in those days than these; but +he was persuaded that this philosophical old boatman could no more +have dreamt of seeing the spectacle which had taken place on +Saturday (the procession of the boats of the Metropolitan Amateur +Rowing Clubs), or of seeing these clubs matched for skill and +speed, than he (the Chairman) should dare to announce through the +usual authentic channels that he was to be heard of at the bar +below, and that he was perfectly prepared to accommodate Mr. James +Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, he could recollect that +he had turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River Thames +with an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some +other Eton boys, and that he could hold his own against them. More +recently still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxford he was +supposed to cover himself with honour, though he must admit that he +found the "locks" so picturesque as to require much examination for +the discovery of their beauty. But what he wanted to say was this, +that though his "fireman waterman" was one of the greatest humbugs +that ever existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy, manly +sport this was. Their waterman would bid them pull away, and +assure them that they were certain of winning in some race. And +here he would remark that aquatic sports never entailed a moment's +cruelty, or a moment's pain, upon any living creature. Rowing men +pursued recreation under circumstances which braced their muscles, +and cleared the cobwebs from their minds. He assured them that he +regarded such clubs as these as a "national blessing." They owed, +it was true, a vast deal to steam power--as was sometimes proved at +matches on the Thames--but, at the same time, they were greatly +indebted to all that tended to keep up a healthy, manly tone. He +understood that there had been a committee selected for the purpose +of arranging a great amateur regatta, which was to take place off +Putney in the course of the season that was just begun. He could +not abstain from availing himself of this occasion to express a +hope that the committee would successfully carry on its labours to +a triumphant result, and that they should see upon the Thames, in +the course of this summer, such a brilliant sight as had never been +seen there before. To secure this there must be some hard work, +skilful combinations, and rather large subscriptions. But although +the aggregate result must be great, it by no means followed that it +need be at all large in its individual details. + +[In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison between the +paying off or purification of the national debt and the +purification of the River Thames.] + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, JUNE 5, 1867. + + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Ninth Anniversary +Festival of the Railway Benevolent Society, at Willis's Rooms, and +in proposing the toast of the evening, made the following speech.] + +Although we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly +fifty years the time when one of the first literary authorities of +this country insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train +that the Legisture might disastrously sanction being limited by Act +of Parliament to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that +this evening, and every evening, there are railway trains running +pretty smoothly to Ireland and to Scotland at the rate of fifty +miles an hour; much as it was objected in its time to vaccination, +that it must have a tendency to impart to human children something +of the nature of the cow, whereas I believe to this very time +vaccinated children are found to be as easily defined from calves +as they ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening influence +on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a +contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened +providentially-inflicted pain, which would be a reason for your not +rubbing your face if you had the tooth-ache, or not rubbing your +nose if it itched; so it was evidently predicted that the railway +system, even if anything so absurd could be productive of any +result, would infallibly throw half the nation out of employment; +whereas, you observe that the very cause and occasion of our coming +here together to-night is, apart from the various tributary +channels of occupation which it has opened out, that it has called +into existence a specially and directly employed population of +upwards of 200,000 persons. + +Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of +200,000 persons engaged upon the various railways of the United +Kingdom cannot be rich; and although their duties require great +care and great exactness, and although our lives are every day, +humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still, for the most +of these places there will be always great competition, because +they are not posts which require skilled workmen to hold. Wages, +as you know very well, cannot be high where competition is great, +and you also know very well that railway directors, in the bargains +they make, and the salaries which they pay, have to deal with the +money of the shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus it +necessarily happens that railway officers and servants are not +remunerated on the whole by any means splendidly, and that they +cannot hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet +the ordinary wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed +that the general hazards are in their case, by reason of the +dangerous nature of their avocations, exceptionally great, so very +great, I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a +parliamentary paper, by the very startling round of figures, that +whereas one railway traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers is killed, +one railway servant in every 2,000 is killed. + +Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual +prudential and benevolent considerations, there came to be +established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago, +the Railway Benevolent Association. I may suppose, therefore, as +it was established nine years ago, that this is the ninth occasion +of publishing from this chair the banns between this institution +and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually to do my +duty the same as if it had never been done before, and to ask +whether there is any just cause or impediment why these two +parties--the institution and the public--should not be joined +together in holy charity. As I understand the society, its objects +are five-fold--first, to guarantee annuities which, it is always to +be observed, is paid out of the interest of invested capital, so +that those annuities may be secure and safe--annual pensions, +varying from 10 to 25 pounds, to distressed railway officers and +servants incapacitated by age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to +guarantee small pensions to distressed widows; thirdly, to educate +and maintain orphan children; fourthly, to provide temporary relief +for all those classes till lasting relief can be guaranteed out of +funds sufficiently large for the purpose; lastly, to induce railway +officers and servants to assure their lives in some well- +established office by sub-dividing the payment of the premiums into +small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of +10 pounds per cent. on the amount assured from the funds of the +institution. + +This is the society we are met to assist--simple, sympathetic, +practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The number of its members +is large, and rapidly on the increase: they number 12,000; the +amount of invested capital is very nearly 15,000 pounds; it has +done a world of good and a world of work in these first nine years +of its life; and yet I am proud to say that the annual cost of the +maintenance of the institution is no more than 250 pounds. And now +if you do not know all about it in a small compass, either I do not +know all about it myself, or the fault must be in my "packing." + +One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to +what it wants. Well, it wants to do more good, and it cannot +possibly do more good until it has more money. It cannot safely, +and therefore it cannot honourably, grant more pensions to +deserving applicants until it grows richer, and it cannot grow rich +enough for its laudable purpose by its own unaided self. The thing +is absolutely impossible. The means of these railway officers and +servants are far too limited. Even if they were helped to the +utmost by the great railway companies, their means would still be +too limited; even if they were helped--and I hope they shortly will +be--by some of the great corporations of this country, whom +railways have done so much to enrich. These railway officers and +servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, +can no more do without the help of the great public, than the great +public, on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without +them. Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servants +of the great railways--who, in fact, are their servants, their +ready, zealous, faithful, hard-working servants--whether they have +not established, whether they do not every day establish, a +reasonable claim to liberal remembrance. + +Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a story once +told me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have a +certain application. My friend was an American sea-captain, and, +therefore, it is quite unnecessary to say his story was quite true. +He was captain and part owner of a large American merchant liner. +On a certain voyage out, in exquisite summer weather, he had for +cabin passengers one beautiful young lady, and ten more or less +beautiful young gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing, +the voyage was slow. They had made half their distance when the +ten young gentlemen were all madly in love with the beautiful young +lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among the rivals +seemed imminent pending the young lady's decision. On this +extremity the beautiful young lady confided in my friend the +captain, who gave her discreet advice. He said: "If your +affections are disengaged, take that one of the young gentlemen +whom you like the best and settle the question." To this the +beautiful young lady made reply, "I cannot do that because I like +them all equally well." My friend, who was a man of resource, hit +upon this ingenious expedient, said he, "To-morrow morning at mid- +day, when lunch is announced, do you plunge bodily overboard, head +foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to rescue you, and take +the one of the ten who rushes to your rescue, and then you can +afterwards have him." The beautiful young lady highly approved, +and did accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine out of the ten +more or less beautiful young gentlemen plunged in after her; and +the tenth remained and shed tears, looking over the side of the +vessel. They were all picked up, and restored dripping to the +deck. The beautiful young lady upon seeing them said, "What am I +to do? See what a plight they are in. How can I possibly choose, +because every one of them is equally wet?" Then said my friend the +captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, "Take the dry one." I +am sorry to say that she did so, and they lived happy ever +afterwards. + +Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse +my friend the captain's anecdote, and I entreat the public in +looking about to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to +give each his hand with something in it, and not award a dry hand +to the industrious railway servant who is always at his back. And +I would ask any one with a doubt upon this subject to consider what +his experience of the railway servant is from the time of his +departure to his arrival at his destination. I know what mine is. +Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman's dress, scaling cabs, +storming carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of instinct, +binding up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, +counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs- +-mostly very complicated--and sticking labels upon all sorts of +articles. I look around--there he is, in a station-master's +uniform, directing and overseeing, with the head of a general, and +with the courteous manners of a gentleman; and then there is the +handsome figure of the guard, who inspires confidence in timid +passengers. I glide out of the station, and there he is again with +his flags in his hand at his post in the open country, at the level +crossing, at the cutting, at the tunnel mouth, and at every station +on the road until our destination is reached. In regard, +therefore, to the railway servants with whom we do come into +contact, we may surely have some natural sympathy, and it is on +their behalf that I this night appeal to you. I beg now to propose +"Success to the Railway Benevolent Society." + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867. + + + +[On presiding at a public Meeting of the Printers' Readers, held at +the Salisbury Hotel, on the above date, Mr. Dickens said:-] + +That as the meeting was convened, not to hear him, but to hear a +statement of facts and figures very nearly affecting the personal +interests of the great majority of those present, his preface to +the proceedings need be very brief. Of the details of the question +he knew, of his own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he had +consented to occupy the chair on that occasion at the request of +the London Association of Correctors of the Press for two reasons-- +first, because he thought that openness and publicity in such cases +were a very wholesome example very much needed at this time, and +were highly becoming to a body of men associated with that great +public safeguard--the Press; secondly, because he knew from some +slight practical experience, what the duties of correctors of the +press were, and how their duties were usually discharged; and he +could testify, and did testify, that they were not mechanical, that +they were not mere matters of manipulation and routine; but that +they required from those who performed them much natural +intelligence, much super-added cultivation, readiness of reference, +quickness of resource, an excellent memory, and a clear +understanding. He most gratefully acknowledged that he had never +gone through the sheets of any book that he had written, without +having presented to him by the correctors of the press something +that he had overlooked, some slight inconsistency into which he had +fallen, some little lapse he had made--in short, without having set +down in black and white some unquestionable indication that he had +been closely followed through the work by a patient and trained +mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. And in this declaration he +had not the slightest doubt that the great body of his brother and +sister writers would, as a plain act of justice, readily concur. +For these plain reasons he was there; and being there he begged to +assure them that every one present--that every speaker--would have +a patient hearing, whatever his opinions might be. + +[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote of +thanks to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair on the occasion.] + +Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed the belief that +their very calm and temperate proceedings would finally result in +the establishment of relations of perfect amity between the +employers and the employed, and consequently conduce to the general +welfare of both. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867. + + + +[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary +farewell dinner was given to Mr. Dickens at the Freemasons' Tavern +on the occasion of his revisiting the United States of America. +Lord Lytton officiated as chairman, and proposed as a toast--"A +Prosperous Voyage, Health, and Long Life to our Illustrious Guest +and Countryman, Charles Dickens". The toast was drunk with all the +honours, and one cheer more. Mr. Dickens then rose, and spoke as +follows:] + +No thanks that I can offer you can express my sense of my reception +by this great assemblage, or can in the least suggest to you how +deep the glowing words of my friend the chairman, and your +acceptance of them, have sunk into my heart. But both combined +have so greatly shaken the composure which I am used to command +before an audience, that I hope you may observe in me some traces +of an eloquence more expressive than the richest words. To say +that I am fervently grateful to you is to say nothing; to say that +I can never forget this beautiful sight, is to say nothing; to say +that it brings upon me a rush of emotion not only in the present, +but in the thought of its remembrance in the future by those who +are dearest to me, is to say nothing; but to feel all this for the +moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio says of +the wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, that-- +"'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis +enough, 'twill serve." {15} I may say of the wound in my breast, +newly dealt to me by the hands of my friends, that it is deeper +than the soundless sea, and wider than the whole Catholic Church. +I may safely add that it has for the moment almost stricken me +dumb. I should be more than human, and I assure you I am very +human indeed, if I could look around upon this brilliant +representative company and not feel greatly thrilled and stirred by +the presence of so many brother artists, not only in literature, +but also in the sister arts, especially painting, among whose +professors living and unhappily dead, are many of my oldest and +best friends. I hope that I may, without presumption, regard this +thronging of my brothers around me as a testimony on their part +that they believe that the cause of art generally has been safe in +my keeping, and that it has never been falsely dealt with by me. +Your resounding cheers just now would have been but so many cruel +reproaches to me if I could not here declare that, from the +earliest days of my career down to this proud night, I have always +tried to be true to my calling. Never unduly to assert it, on the +one hand, and never, on any pretence or consideration, to permit it +to be patronized in my person, has been the steady endeavour of my +life; and I have occasionally been vain enough to hope that I may +leave its social position in England better than I found it. +Similarly, and equally I hope without presumption, I trust that I +may take this general representation of the public here, through so +many orders, pursuits, and degrees, as a token that the public +believe that, with a host of imperfections and shortcomings on my +head, I have as a writer, in my soul and conscience, tried to be as +true to them as they have ever been true to me. And here, in +reference to the inner circle of the arts and the outer circle of +the public, I feel it a duty to-night to offer two remarks. I have +in my duty at odd times heard a great deal about literary sets and +cliques, and coteries and barriers; about keeping this man up, and +keeping that man down; about sworn disciples and sworn unbelievers, +and mutual admiration societies, and I know not what other dragons +in the upward path. I began to tread it when I was very young, +without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, or +adviser, and I am bound to put in evidence in this place that I +never lighted on these dragons yet. So have I heard in my day, at +divers other odd times, much generally to the effect that the +English people have little or no love of art for its own sake, and +that they do not greatly care to acknowledge or do honour to the +artist. My own experience has uniformly been exactly the reverse. +I can say that of my countrymen, though I cannot say that of my +country. + +And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me this +great honour, the story of my going again to America is very easily +and briefly told. Since I was there before a vast and entirely new +generation has arisen in the United States. Since I was there +before most of the best known of my books have been written and +published; the new generation and the books have come together and +have kept together, until at length numbers of those who have so +widely and constantly read me; naturally desiring a little variety +in the relationship between us, have expressed a strong wish that I +should read myself. This wish, at first conveyed to me through +public channels and business channels, has gradually become +enforced by an immense accumulation of letters from individuals and +associations of individuals, all expressing in the same hearty, +homely, cordial unaffected way, a kind of personal interest in me-- +I had almost said a kind of personal affection for me, which I am +sure you would agree with me it would be dull insensibility on my +part not to prize. Little by little this pressure has become so +great that, although, as Charles Lamb says, my household gods +strike a terribly deep root, I have torn them from their places, +and this day week, at this hour, shall be upon the sea. You will +readily conceive that I am inspired besides by a natural desire to +see for myself the astonishing change and progress of a quarter of +a century over there, to grasp the hands of many faithful friends +whom I left there, to see the faces of the multitude of new friends +upon whom I have never looked, and last, not least, to use my best +endeavour to lay down a third cable of intercommunication and +alliance between the old world and the new. Twelve years ago, when +Heaven knows I little thought I should ever be bound upon the +voyage which now lies before me, I wrote in that form of my +writings which obtains by far the most extensive circulation, these +words of the American nation:- "I know full well, whatever little +motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, that they are a +kind, large-hearted, generous, and great people." In that faith I +am going to see them again; in that faith I shall, please God, +return from them in the spring; in that same faith to live and to +die. I told you in the beginning that I could not thank you +enough, and Heaven knows I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I +may quote one other short sentence from myself, let it imply all +that I have left unsaid, and yet most deeply feel. Let it, putting +a girdle round the earth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic at +once in this moment, and say, as Tiny Tim observes, "God bless us +every one." + + + +SPEECH: BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868. + + + +[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, on the above date. +On his entrance a surprise awaited him. His reading-stand had been +decorated with flowers and palm-leaves by some of the ladies of the +city. He acknowledged this graceful tribute in the following +words:- "Before allowing Dr. Marigold to tell his story in his own +peculiar way, I kiss the kind, fair hands unknown, which have so +beautifully decorated my table this evening." After the Reading, +Mr. Dickens attempted in vain to retire. Persistent hands demanded +"one word more." Returning to his desk, pale, with a tear in his +eye, that found its way to his voice, he spoke as follows:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--My gracious and generous welcome in America, +which can never be obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My +departure begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never +until this moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief +life of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, +and I cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be +turned towards my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that +it is a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments from +this time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade +from my view--for ever more. But it is my consolation that the +spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the ready +response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have made this +place delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon it that +that spirit will abide with me as long as I have sense and +sentiment left. + +I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships +that have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved +spot to me, for such private references have no business in this +public place. I say it purely in remembrance of, and in homage to, +the great public heart before me. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and +most affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell + + + +SPEECH: NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1863. + + + +[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained at a farewell dinner +at Delmonico's Hotel, previous to his return to England. Two +hundred gentlemen sat down to it; Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. In +acknowledgment of the toast of his health, proposed by the +chairman, Mr. Dickens rose and said:-] + +Gentlemen,--I cannot do better than take my cue to from your +distinguished president, and refer in my first remarks to his +remarks in connexion with the old, natural, association between you +and me. When I received an invitation from a private association +of working members of the press of New York to dine with them to- +day, I accepted that compliment in grateful remembrance of a +calling that was once my own, and in loyal sympathy towards a +brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quieted. To the +wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I was a very +young man, I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons will +hereafter testify of their father that he was always steadily proud +of that ladder by which he rose. If it were otherwise, I should +have but a very poor opinion of their father, which, perhaps, upon +the whole, I have not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances, +this company would have been exceptionally interesting and +gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed that, like the fairies' +pavilion in the "Arabian Nights," it would be but a mere handful, +and I find it turn out, like the same elastic pavilion, capable of +comprehending a multitude, so much the more proud am I of the +honour of being your guest; for you will readily believe that the +more widely representative of the press in America my entertainers +are, the more I must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments +towards me of that vast institution. + +Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, +and I have for upwards of four hard winter months so contended +against what I have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was "a +true American catarrh "--a possession which I have throughout +highly appreciated, though I might have preferred to be naturalised +by any other outward and visible signs--I say, gentlemen, so much +of my voice has lately been heard, that I might have been contented +with troubling you no further from my present standing-point, were +it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here +but on every suitable occasion whatsoever and wheresoever, to +express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in +America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity +and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the +amazing changes that I have seen around me on every side--changes +moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and +peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the +growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the +graces and amenities of life, changes in the press, without whose +advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe +me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there +have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no +extreme impressions to correct when I was here first. + +And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever +since I landed here last November, observed a strict silence, +though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I +will, with your good leave, take you into my confidence now. Even +the press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, +and I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances known +its information to be not perfectly accurate with reference to +myself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by +printed news that I have read of myself than by any printed news +that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the +vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past been +collecting materials for and hammering away at a new book on +America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has +been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the +Atlantic that I positively declared that no consideration on earth +should induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I +have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in +you) is, on my return to England, in my own person, to bear, for +the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes +in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that +wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the +largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, +delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with +unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the +nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health. This +testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have +any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be re-published, as +an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I +have referred to America. And this I will do and cause to be done, +not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an +act of plain justice and honour. + +Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest +in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a +natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. +I was asked in this very city, about last Christmas time, whether +an American was not at some disadvantage in England as a foreigner. +The notion of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner +at all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in that +character, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd to me, that my +gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was +restored, I said that for years and years past I hoped I had had as +many American friends and had received as many American visitors as +almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, +fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be an +American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition +anywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenly spoke out +two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art, +who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a +certain historical English castle, famous for its pictures, was +refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the +establishment on that day, but who, on merely representing that he +was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the +picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his immediate +disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London, and having a +great desire to see the famous reading-room of the British Museum, +was assured by the English family with whom she stayed that it was +unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week, +and she had only three days there. Upon that lady's going to the +Museum, as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an +American lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am +unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young and +exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution is of an +obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him, +not very impressible. + +Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance +to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to +do, to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself, +has no previous conceptions to contend against. Points of +difference there have been, points of difference there are, points +of difference there probably always will be between the two great +peoples. But broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that those +two peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with them +jointly to uphold the great Anglo-Saxon race, to which our +president has referred, and all its great achievements before the +world. And if I know anything of my countrymen--and they give me +credit for knowing something--if I know anything of my countrymen, +gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those +Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies +except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation +towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute +recommended that lovers should begin, with "a little aversion," but +with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little +sensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, or the +little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, +take my word for it, that the first enduring, great, popular +consideration in England is a generous construction of justice. + +Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do +believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides, +there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for +this globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun +by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that +it should present the spectacle of these two great nations, each of +which has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so +successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one against +the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your president enough or you +enough for your kind reception of my health, and of my poor +remarks, but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost fervour of +which my soul is capable. + + + +SPEECH: NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868. + + + +[Mr. Dickens's last Reading in the United States was given at the +Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was about to +retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came +forward and spoke thus:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--The shadow of one word has impended over me +this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must +fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is +not measured by their length, and two much shorter words express +the round of our human existence. When I was reading "David +Copperfield" a few evenings since, I felt there was more than usual +significance in the words of Peggotty, "My future life lies over +the sea." And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly +that I was shortly to establish such an alibi as would have +satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been +set up between us, while they have involved for me something more +than mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the +readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment. + +Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, however, +that you will not pass from my mind. I shall often realise you as +I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English +summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public +audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with +the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and +gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God bless you, and God bless +the land in which I leave you. + + + +SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869. + + + +[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet +held in his honour at St. George's Hall, Liverpool, after his +health had been proposed by Lord Dufferin.] + +Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, although I have been so well +accustomed of late to the sound of my own voice in this +neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion +is, believe me, very, very different in respect of those +overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to +me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from hearing him in +public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when he +was quite alone--so you can form no conception, from the specimen +before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and +again in some of the innermost moments of my future life. Often +and often, then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant +scene, and will re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I, faithful to +this place in its present aspect, will observe it exactly as it +stands--not one man's seat empty, not one woman's fair face absent, +while life and memory abide by me. + +Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so +eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful +and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit +to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a +moment's untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built +upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind, +after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers +in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to +them through the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremost among the +great places out of London to which I looked with eager confidence +and pleasure. And why was this? Not merely because of the +reputation of its citizens for generous estimation of the arts; not +merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of its great self- +educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had +been a home to me since the well-remembered day when its blessed +roofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion +of my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the +Atlantic twenty-seven years ago. Not for one of those +considerations, but because it had been my happiness to have a +public opportunity of testing the spirit of its people. I had +asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation of +Shakespeare's house. On another occasion I had ventured to address +Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles. On +still another occasion I had addressed it in the cause of the +brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the kindred arts, and on +each and all the response had been unsurpassably spontaneous, open- +handed, and munificent. + +Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a +small illustration of my present position from my own peculiar +craft, I would say that there is this objection in writing fiction +to giving a story an autobiographical form, that through whatever +dangers the narrator may pass, it is clear unfortunately to the +reader beforehand that he must have come through them somehow else +he could not have lived to tell the tale. Now, in speaking fact, +when the fact is associated with such honours as those with which +you have enriched me, there is this singular difficulty in the way +of returning thanks, that the speaker must infallibly come back to +himself through whatever oratorical disasters he may languish on +the road. Let me, then, take the plainer and simpler middle course +of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let me +assure you that whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by +word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved +in the acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly +refined which has seven times passed the furnace, so a fancy may be +said to become more and more refined each time it passes through +the human heart. You have, and you know you have, brought to the +consideration of me that quality in yourselves without which I +should but have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated +mine, your laughter has made me laugh, and your tears have +overflowed my eyes. All that I can claim for myself in +establishing the relations which exist between us is constant +fidelity to hard work. My literary fellows about me, of whom I am +so proud to see so many, know very well how true it is in all art +that what seems the easiest done is oftentimes the most difficult +to do, and that the smallest truth may come of the greatest pains-- +much, as it occurred to me at Manchester the other day, as the +sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth's measuring machine, comes at +last, of Heaven and Manchester and its mayor only know how much +hammering--my companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think +it only right the public should know too, that in our careful toil +and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence--not in any +little gifts, misused by fits and starts--lies our highest duty at +once to our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to you. + +Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to +clear myself of two very unexpected accusations. The first is a +most singular charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord +Houghton, that I have been somewhat unconscious of the merits of +the House of Lords. Now, ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have +had some few not altogether obscure or unknown personal friends in +that assembly, seeing that I had some little association with, and +knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England by the +name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard with some admiration +and affection another obscure peer wholly unknown in literary +circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have had for some +years some slight admiration of the extraordinary judicial +properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice +popularly known by the name of Cockburn; and also seeing that there +is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, +whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have +received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of +literature than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; +taking these circumstances into consideration, I was rather amazed +by my noble friend's accusation. When I asked him, on his sitting +down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he +replied that he had never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. +Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all. Because it is a +remarkable fact that in the days when that depreciative and +profoundly unnatural character was invented there was no Lord +Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House of +Commons a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton Milnes. + +Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close with +the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious, +and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a +dozen plain words. When I first took literature as my profession +in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I +succeeded or whether I failed, literature should be my sole +profession. It appeared to me at that time that it was not so well +understood in England as it was in other countries that literature +was a dignified profession, by which any man might stand or fall. +I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should +stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is no +consideration on earth which would induce me to break that bargain. + +Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great +kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have +drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it +had not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient +reasons, I lost my heart at between half-past six and half-past +seven to-night. + + + +SPEECH: THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE. SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30, +1869. + + + +[The International University Boat Race having taken place on +August 27, the London Rowing Club invited the Crews to a Dinner at +the Crystal Palace on the following Monday. The dinner was +followed by a grand display of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in +proposing the health of the Crews, made the following speech:] + +Gentlemen, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as +about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spirt +and then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of +the London Rowing Club on this most interesting occasion, I will +beg, in the name of the other invited visitors present--always +excepting the distinguished guests who are the cause of our +meeting--to thank the president for the modesty and the courtesy +with which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of +his evening's duty. It is the more graceful in him to do this +because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it +himself, as this is a case of all others in which it is according +to good taste and the very principles of things that the great +social vice, speech-making, should hide it diminished head before +the great social virtue action. However, there is an ancient story +of a lady who threw her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to +tempt her attendant lover to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, +rightly inferring from the action the worth of the lady, risked his +life for the glove, and then threw it rightly in her face as a +token of his eternal adieu. {16} I take up the President's glove, +on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and of my +real interest in the cause in which it was thrown down, and I now +profess my readiness to do even injustice to the duty which he has +assigned me. + +Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in +the United States within a short time before my last visit to that +hospitable land, containing ninety-five biographies of young men, +for the most part well-born and well nurtured, and trained in +various peaceful pursuits of life, who, when the flag of their +country waved them from those quiet paths in which they were +seeking distinction of various kinds, took arms in the dread civil +war which elicited so much bravery on both sides, and died in the +defence of their country. These great spirits displayed +extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, +of military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great +masses of men, in surprising readiness of self-resource for the +general good, in humanely treating the sick and the wounded, and in +winning to themselves a very rare amount of personal confidence and +trust. They had all risen to be distinguished soldiers; they had +all done deeds of great heroism; they had all combined with their +valour and self-devotion a serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, +and a truly Christian spirit; and they had all been educated in one +school--Harvard University. + +Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants of +our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they +fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they +resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that +Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than she was in +war? I ask you, who will not recognise in her boat's crew the +leaven of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she has now a +greater right than ever to be proud of her sons, and take these +sons to her breast when they return with resounding acclamations? +It is related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told a lady +who foolishly protested that she would like to see a great victory +that there was only one thing worse than a great victory, and that +was a great defeat. + +But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term a +great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of daring fellows +who make a preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles +to meet great conquerors on their own domain--who do not want the +stimulus of friends and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel +their own dear land in the shouts and cheers of another--and who +strive to the last with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating +of them a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree +with me that such a defeat is a great, noble part of a manly, +wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essence and life- +blood of such a defeat to become at last sure victory. + +Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to +propose, and you know equally well that in thus glancing first +towards our friends of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and +respond to the instinctive courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers +from a distance--a courtesy extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, +to any imaginable limits except allowing them to take the first +place in last Friday's match, if they could by any human and +honourable means be kept in the second. I will not avail myself of +the opportunity provided for me by the absence of the greater part +of the Oxford crew--indeed, of all but one, and that, its most +modest and devoted member--I will not avail myself of the golden +opportunity considerately provided for me to say a great deal in +honour of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who attends +here attends under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if +he were less in earnest his filial affection could not possibly +allow him to be here. + +It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you, that +I should say here, and now, that we all unite with one accord in +regarding the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England--and +that we should consider it very weak indeed to set anything short +of England's very best in opposition to or competition with +America; though it certainly must be confessed--I am bound in +common justice and honour to admit it--it must be confessed in +disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented +gentleman remark--last Friday night, about ten o'clock, when he was +baiting a very small horse in the Strand--he was one of eleven with +pipes in a chaise cart--I say it must be admitted in disparagement +of the Oxford men on the authority of this gentleman, that they +have won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and +that "they ought to do it, but they won't." + +Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor +testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant spectacle +which they presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure +I express not only your feeling, and my feeling, and the feeling of +the Blue, but also the feeling of the whole people of England, when +I cordially give them welcome to our English waters and English +ground, and also bid them "God speed" in their voyage home. As the +greater includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I think +it is no very bold augury to predict that in the friendly contests +yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both sides of the +Atlantic--there are great river triumphs for Harvard University yet +in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English portion of this audience +that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an +undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a common seaman +two years before the mast, {17} and who wrote about the best sea +book in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those +young American gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across the +Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with +the men who believed in him. + +And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial +acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a +distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received +on their return home will find a ready echo in every corner of +England--and further, that none of their immediate countrymen--I +use the qualifying term immediate, for we are, as our president +said, fellow countrymen, thank God--that none of their compatriots +who saw, or who will read of, what they did in this great race, can +be more thoroughly imbued with a sense of their indomitable courage +and their high deserts than are their rivals and their hosts to- +night. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink the crews of +Harvard and Oxford University, and I beg to couple with that toast +the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan. + + + +SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869. + + + +[Inaugural Address on the opening of the Winter Session of the +Birmingham and Midland Institute. + +One who was present during the delivery of the following speech, +informs the editor that "no note of any kind was referred to by Mr. +Dickens--except the Quotation from Sydney Smith. The address, +evidently carefully prepared, was delivered without a single pause, +in Mr. Dickens's best manner, and was a very great success."] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--We often hear of our common country that it +is an over-populated one, that it is an over-pauperized one, that +it is an over-colonizing one, and that it is an over-taxed one. +Now, I entertain, especially of late times, the heretical belief +that it is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of public +speech-making going about in various directions which might be +advantageously dispensed with. If I were free to act upon this +conviction, as president for the time being of the great +institution so numerously represented here, I should immediately +and at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of a +highly edifying, because of a very exemplary character. But I +happen to be the institution's willing servant, not its imperious +master, and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech--not +to say brazen--from whomsoever it exalts to my high office. Some +African tribes--not to draw the comparison disrespectfully--some +savage African tribes, when they make a king require him perhaps to +achieve an exhausting foot-race under the stimulus of considerable +popular prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and +experimentally knocked about the head by his Privy Council, or +perhaps to be dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to +drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash--at +all events, to undergo some purifying ordeal in presence of his +admiring subjects. + +I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned +by your constituted authorities that whatever I might happen to say +here to-night would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance +upon a new term of study by the members of your various classes; +for, besides that, the phrase is something high-sounding for my +taste, I avow that I do look forward to that blessed time when +every man shall inaugurate his own work for himself, and do it. I +believe that we shall then have inaugurated a new era indeed, and +one in which the Lord's Prayer will become a fulfilled prophecy +upon this earth. Remembering, however, that you may call anything +by any name without in the least changing its nature--bethinking +myself that you may, if you be so minded, call a butterfly a +buffalo, without advancing a hair's breadth towards making it one-- +I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to the very +homely intention I had previously formed. This was merely to tell +you, the members, students, and friends of the Birmingham and +Midland Institute--firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know, +(this is a very popular oratorical theme); secondly, what your +institution has done; and, thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of +its President for the time being, remains for it to do and not to +do. + +Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You +cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the +abstract advantages of knowledge or the beauties of self- +improvement. If you had any such requirement you would not be +here. I conceive that you are here because you have become +thoroughly penetrated with such principles, either in your own +persons or in the persons of some striving fellow-creatures, on +whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I conceive that +you are here because you feel the welfare of the great chiefly +adult educational establishment, whose doors stand really open to +all sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable from the best +welfare of your great town and its neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a +much wider range than that, and say that we all--every one of us +here--perfectly well know that the benefits of such an +establishment must extend far beyond the limits of this midland +county--its fires and smoke,--and must comprehend, in some sort, +the whole community, I do not strain the truth. It was suggested +by Mr. Babbage, in his ninth "Bridgewater Treatise," that a mere +spoken word--a single articulated syllable thrown into the air--may +go on reverberating through illimitable space for ever and for +ever, seeing that there is no rim against which it can strike--no +boundary at which it can possibly arrive. Similarly it may be +said--not as an ingenious speculation, but as a stedfast and +absolute fact--that human calculation cannot limit the influence of +one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, modestly +possessed, and faithfully used. + +As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in +the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of +which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is +certain that every man, however obscure, however far removed from +the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for +good, and impressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal +nature of things that he cannot really improve himself without in +some degree improving other men. And observe, this is especially +the case when he has improved himself in the teeth of adverse +circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to a neglected or an +ill-taught youth, in the few daily hours remaining to him after ten +or twelve hours' labour, in the few pauses and intervals of a life +of toil; for then his fellows and companions have assurance that he +can have known no favouring conditions, and that they can do what +he has done, in wresting some enlightenment and self-respect from +what Lord Lytton finely calls - + + +"Those twin gaolers of the daring heart, +Low birth and iron fortune." + + +As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your +own observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there can be +very few persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who +would contest the position that the more cultivated the employed +the better for the employer, and the more cultivated the employer +the better for the employed; therefore, my references to what you +do not want to know shall here cease and determine. + +Next, with reference to what your institution has done on my +summary, which shall be as concise and as correct as my information +and my remembrance of it may render possible, I desire to lay +emphatic stress. Your institution, sixteen years old, and in which +masters and workmen study together, has outgrown the ample edifice +in which it receives its 2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It +is a most cheering sign of its vigorous vitality that of its +industrial-students almost half are artisans in the receipt of +weekly wages. I think I am correct in saying that 400 others are +clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen's sons. I note with +particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the gentler +sex, without whom no institution whatever can truly claim to be +either a civilising or a civilised one. The increased attendance +at your educational classes is always greatest on the part of the +artisans--the class within my experience the least reached in any +similar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is the oftenest and +the most constantly taken in vain. But it is specially reached +here, not improbably because it is, as it should be, specially +addressed in the foundation of the industrial department, in the +allotment of the direction of the society's affairs, and in the +establishment of what are called its penny classes--a bold, and, I +am happy to say, a triumphantly successful experiment, which +enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects +directly bearing upon his daily usefulness or on his daily +happiness, as arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, +physical geography, and singing, on payment of the astoundingly low +fee of a single penny every time he attends the class. I beg +emphatically to say that I look upon this as one of the most +remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof of the +artisan, and if your institution had done nothing else in all its +life, I would take my stand by it on its having done this. + +Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has its general +department, offering all the advantages of a first-class literary +institution. It has its reading-rooms, its library, its chemical +laboratory, its museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and +its long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive +interest, delivered by lecturers of the highest qualifications. +Very well. But it may be asked, what are the practical results of +all these appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that +your institution should have educated those who are now its +teachers. That would be a very remarkable fact. Supposing, +besides, it should, so to speak, have educated education all around +it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers into many and +divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared exclusively in +its laboratory, should be presently snapped up for the laboratory +of the great and famous hospitals. Suppose that in nine years its +industrial students should have carried off a round dozen of the +much competed for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the +Government department, besides two local prizes originating in the +generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council, +having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the +Whitworth prizes, should find him here. Suppose that one of the +industrial students should turn his chemical studies to the +practical account of extracting gold from waste colour water, and +of taking it into custody, in the very act of running away with +hundreds of pounds down the town drains. Suppose another should +perceive in his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss +with his master's until then inscrutably defective furnace, and +should go straight--to the great annual saving of that master--and +put it right. Supposing another should puzzle out the means, until +then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of +coloured glass. Supposing another should qualify himself to +vanquish one by one, as they daily arise, all the little +difficulties incidental to his calling as an electro-plater, and +should be applied to by his companions in the shop in all +emergencies under the name of the "Encyclopaedia." Suppose a long +procession of such cases, and then consider that these are not +suppositions at all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating +in the one special and significant fact that, with a single +solitary exception, every one of the institution's industrial +students who have taken its prizes within ten years, have since +climbed to higher situations in their way of life. + +As to the extent to which the institution encourages the artisan to +think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the little +shackling prejudices and observances perchance existing in his +trade when they will not bear the test of inquiry, that is only to +be equalled by the extent to which it encourages him to feel. +There is a certain tone of modest manliness pervading all the +little facts which I have looked through which I found remarkably +impressive. The decided objection on the part of industrial +students to attend classes in their working clothes, breathes this +tone, as being a graceful and at the same time perfectly +independent recognition of the place and of one another. And this +tone is admirably illustrated in a different way, in the case of a +poor bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses through the +illness of his family, and having consequently been obliged to part +with his best clothes, and being therefore missed from his classes, +in which he had been noticed as a very hard worker, was persuaded +to attend them in his working clothes. He replied, "No, it was not +possible. It must not be thought of. It must not come into +question for a moment. It would be supposed, or it might be +thought, that he did it to attract attention." And the same man +being offered by one of the officers a loan of money to enable him +to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the +ground that he came to the institution to learn and to know better +how to help himself, not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help +from any man. Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the +institution, because it is no isolated instance, but is a fair and +honourable sample of the spirit of the place, and as such I put it +at the conclusion--though last certainly not least--of my +references to what your institution has indubitably done. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble +opinion of the evanescent officer before you, remains for the +institution to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it towards +the closing pages of his grand history of the French Revolution, +"This we are now with due brevity to glance at; and then courage, +oh listener, I see land!" {18} I earnestly hope--and I firmly +believe--that your institution will do henceforth as it has done +hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and believe that it will +know among its members no distinction of persons, creed, or party, +but that it will conserve its place of assemblage as a high, pure +ground, on which all such considerations shall merge into the one +universal, heaven-sent aspiration of the human soul to be wiser and +better. I hope and believe that it will always be expansive and +elastic; for ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging the +circle of its members, of attracting to itself the confidence of +still greater and greater numbers, and never evincing any more +disposition to stand still than time does, or life does, or the +seasons do. And above all things, I hope, and I feel confident +from its antecedents, that it will never allow any consideration on +the face of the earth to induce it to patronise or to be +patronised, for I verily believe that the bestowal and receipt of +patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has +done more to prevent really good objects, and to lower really high +character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest antagonism +could have effected in twice the time. + +I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the +timid opponents of intellectual progress; but in this connexion +generally I cannot forbear from offering a remark which is much +upon my mind. It is commonly assumed--much too commonly--that this +age is a material age, and that a material age is an irreligious +age. I have been pained lately to see this assumption repeated in +certain influential quarters for which I have a high respect, and +desire to have a higher. I am afraid that by dint of constantly +being reiterated, and reiterated without protest, this assumption-- +which I take leave altogether to deny--may be accepted by the more +unthinking part of the public as unquestionably true; just as +caricaturists and painters, professedly making a portrait of some +public man, which was not in the least like him to begin with, have +gone on repeating and repeating it until the public came to believe +that it must be exactly like him, simply because it was like +itself, and really have at last, in the fulness of time, grown +almost disposed to resent upon him their tardy discovery--really to +resent upon him their late discovery--that he was not like it. I +confess, standing here in this responsible situation, that I do not +understand this much-used and much-abused phrase--the "material +age." I cannot comprehend--if anybody can I very much doubt--its +logical signification. For instance, has electricity become more +material in the mind of any sane or moderately insane man, woman, +or child, because of the discovery that in the good providence of +God it could be made available for the service and use of man to an +immeasurably greater extent than for his destruction? Do I make a +more material journey to the bed-side of my dying parent or my +dying child when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, +than when I travel thither at the rate of six? Rather, in the +swiftest case, does not my agonised heart become over-fraught with +gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from whom alone could have +proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense? What is +the materiality of the cable or the wire compared with the +materiality of the spark? What is the materiality of certain +chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or +release, compared with the materiality of their appointed +affinities and repulsions presented to them from the instant of +their creation to the day of judgment? When did this so-called +material age begin? With the use of clothing; with the discovery +of the compass; with the invention of the art of printing? Surely, +it has been a long time about; and which is the more material +object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give me light, or +that flame of gas which will? + +No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived +by any fine, vapid, empty words. The true material age is the +stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature +are granted, because they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, +instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference +between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the +lightning and the modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it +towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study +that which was set before him to be studied (or it would not have +been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction between +the much-maligned material sages--material in one sense, I suppose, +but in another very immaterial sages--of the Celestial Empire +school. Consider whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or +unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of +thought, and finding myself surrounded by such discovered wonders +on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the question--should put +to myself the solemn consideration--can these things be among those +things which might have been disclosed by divine lips nigh upon two +thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could not bear +them? And whether this be so or no, if I am so surrounded on every +hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased +thereby, and with it my intelligence and submission as a child of +Adam and of the dust, before that Shining Source which equally of +all that is granted and all that is withheld holds in His mighty +hands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death. + +To the students of your industrial classes generally I have had it +in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two words, +"Courage--Persevere." This is the motto of a friend and worker. +Not because the eyes of Europe are upon them, for I don't in the +least believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon +them, for I don't in the least believe it; not because their doings +will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at street corners, for no +such musical performances will take place; not because self- +improvement is at all certain to lead to worldly success, but +simply because it is good and right of itself, and because, being +so, it does assuredly bring with it its own resources and its own +rewards. I would further commend to them a very wise and witty +piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding which was given +more than half a century ago by the Rev. Sydney Smith--wisest and +wittiest of the friends I have lost. He says--and he is speaking, +you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of volunteer +students--he says: "There is a piece of foppery which is to be +cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing +all sciences and excelling in all arts--chymistry, mathematics, +algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, +High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept +of education very often is, 'Take the Admirable Crichton for your +model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.' Now," says he, "my +advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a +great number of things, in order that you may avoid the calamity of +being ignorant of everything." + +To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good +of my own life and the life of every eminent man I have ever known. +The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable +quality in every study and in every pursuit is the quality of +attention. My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can +most truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, +but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, +drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, +brilliancy in association of ideas--such mental qualities, like the +qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in +Macbeth, will not be commanded; but attention, after due term of +submissive service, always will. Like certain plants which the +poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated +by any one, and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth +flowers and fruit. I can most truthfully assure you by-the-by, +that this eulogium on attention is so far quite disinterested on my +part as that it has not the least reference whatever to the +attention with which you have honoured me. + +Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect how +often you have probably heard within these walls one of the +foremost men, and certainly one of the very best speakers, if not +the very best, in England. I could not say to myself, when I began +just now, in Shakespeare's line - + + +"I will be BRIGHT and shining gold," + + +but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, "I will be as +natural and easy as I possibly can," because my heart has all been +in my subject, and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and +Birmingham men. I have said that I bear an old love towards +Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and +add "and Birmingham women." This ring I wear on my finger now is +an old Birmingham gift, and if by rubbing it I could raise the +spirit that was obedient to Aladdin's ring, I heartily assure you +that my first instruction to that genius on the spot should be to +place himself at Birmingham's disposal in the best of causes. + + +[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:-] + + +Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that I +shall have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is +out, and shall have the great interest of seeing the faces and +touching the bands of the successful competitors in your lists, I +will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible +foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably result from a second +speech. I thank you most heartily, and I most sincerely and +fervently say to you, "Good night, and God bless you." In +reference to the appropriate and excellent remarks of Mr. Dixon, I +will now discharge my conscience of my political creed, which is +contained in two articles, and has no reference to any party or +persons. My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, +infinitesimal; my faith in the People governed is, on the whole, +illimitable. + + + +SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870. + + + +[On the evening of the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the +Birmingham and Midland Institute, distributed the prizes and +certificates awarded to the most successful students in the first +year. The proceedings took place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens +entered at eight o'clock, accompanied by the officers of the +Institute, and was received with loud applause. After the lapse of +a minute or two, he rose and said:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--When I last had the honour to preside over a +meeting of the Institution which again brings us together, I took +occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of public speaking +which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require +very little self-denial on my part to practise now what I preached +then; firstly, because I said my little say that night; and +secondly, because we have definite and highly interesting action +before us to-night. We have now to bestow the rewards which have +been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the +society's lists. I say the most successful, because to-night we +should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all +honest endeavour, and that there is some victory gained in every +gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory +achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition +for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of cases, +competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to +the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my +hearers may be certain that he has still won much--very much--and +that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have +passed him in the race. + +I have applied the word "rewards" to these prizes, and I do so, not +because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver or gold, +but precisely because they do not. They represent what is above +all price--what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what +is one of the great needs of the human soul--encouraging sympathy. +They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your +institution, that he does not work either neglected or unfriended, +and that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. +Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of this large assembly, +and striking to the breasts of the recipients that thrill which is +inseparable from any great united utterance of feeling, is a +reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of the labour as the +labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a sensitive spirit +can never be forgotten. + +[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of +"Pickwick," which was received with laugher. Mr. Dickens made some +remarks to the lady in an undertone; and then observed to the +audience, "I have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name." The +prizes having been distributed, Mr. Dickens made a second brief +speech. He said:-] + +The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself of +the delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if the recipients +of these prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform +have had the genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments +from my hands that I have had in placing them in theirs, they are +in a true Christian temper to-night. I have the painful sense upon +me, that it is reserved for some one else to enjoy this great +satisfaction of mind next time. It would be useless for the few +short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have +drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign will very +soon sit upon my inconstant throne. To-night I abdicate, or, what +is much the same thing in the modern annals of Royalty--I am +politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and +gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal to myself, +upon which I will beg your permission to say a closing word. + +When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks of +your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my +political faith--or perhaps I should better say want of faith. It +imported that I have very little confidence in the people who +govern us--please to observe "people" there will be with a small +"p,"--but that I have great confidence in the People whom they +govern; please to observe "people" there with a large "P." This +was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil +intention, I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely +explained. Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant +fiction, but one which I do see rather frequently quoted as if +there were grains of truth at the bottom of it--a fiction called +the "Circumlocution Office,"--and perhaps also as the writer of an +idle book or two, whose public opinions are not obscurely stated-- +perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in mind +Hamlet's caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo +me. + +Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may be no +mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will re- +state my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, +a great writer, and a great scholar, {19} whose death, +unfortunately for mankind, cut short his "History of Civilization +in England:"--"They may talk as they will about reforms which +Government has introduced and improvements to be expected from +legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more commanding view +of human affairs, will soon discover that such hopes are +chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the +obstructors of society instead of its helpers, and that in the +extremely few cases where their measures have turned out well their +success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual +custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and +have been--as they always should be--the mere servants of the +people, to whose wishes they are bound to give a public and legal +sanction." + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846. {20} + + + +[The first anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund +Association was held on the evening of the above date at the London +Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus proposed the +principal toast:] + +Gentlemen,--In offering to you a toast which has not as yet been +publicly drunk in any company, it becomes incumbent on me to offer +a few words in explanation: in the first place, premising that the +toast will be "The General Theatrical Fund." + +The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate to-night, was +founded seven years ago, for the purpose of granting permanent +pensions to such of the corps dramatique as had retired from the +stage, either from a decline in their years or a decay of their +powers. Collected within the scope of its benevolence are all +actors and actresses, singers, or dancers, of five years' standing +in the profession. To relieve their necessities and to protect +them from want is the great end of the Society, and it is good to +know that for seven years the members of it have steadily, +patiently, quietly, and perseveringly pursued this end, advancing +by regular contribution, moneys which many of them could ill +afford, and cheered by no external help or assistance of any kind +whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, but I +trust that we shall establish to-night that its time is out, and +that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and +brilliant career. + +I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were +when this institution was founded, two other institutions existing +of a similar nature--Covent Garden and Drury Lane--both of long +standing, both richly endowed. It cannot, however, be too +distinctly understood, that the present Institution is not in any +way adverse to those. How can it be when it is only a wide and +broad extension of all that is most excellent in the principles on +which they are founded? That such an extension was absolutely +necessary was sufficiently proved by the fact that the great body +of the dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by +a membership of either of these institutions; for it was essential, +in order to become a member of the Drury Lane Society, that the +applicant, either he or she, should have been engaged for three +consecutive seasons as a performer. This was afterwards reduced, +in the case of Covent Garden, to a period of two years, but it +really is as exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell +you that Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might +play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put them all +into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard within its +walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous +prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. In like manner, Drury +Lane is conducted now with almost a sole view to the opera and +ballet, insomuch that the statue of Shakespeare over the door +serves as emphatically to point out his grave as his bust did in +the church of Stratford-upon-Avon. How can the profession +generally hope to qualify for the Drury Lane or Covent Garden +institution, when the oldest and most distinguished members have +been driven from the boards on which they have earned their +reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the General +Theatrical Fund alone extended? + +I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, +with which I have had the honour of being connected at different +periods of my life. At the time those Associations were +established, an engagement at one of those theatres was almost a +matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole +life; but an engagement of two months' duration at Covent Garden +would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just now. It should +never be forgotten that when those two funds were established, the +two great theatres were protected by patent, and that at that time +the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of +the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see +around me could no more belong to the minor theatres of that day +than they could now belong to St. Bartholomew fair. + +As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they have +done, so I honour this for the much greater good it is resolved to +do. It is not because I love them less, but because I love this +more--because it includes more in its operation. + +Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so +much in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win the great +prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of the +theatrical system, and by consequence bear a part in contributing +to our pleasures. We owe them a debt which we ought to pay. The +beds of such men are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers +indeed. Their lives are lives of care and privation, and hard +struggles with very stern realities. It is from among the poor +actors who drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously like +toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful +appetites for steaks,--it is from their ranks that the most +triumphant favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, the +greater the instruction and delight we derive from the rich English +drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect the humblest of +those votaries of the art who add to our instruction and amusement. + +Hazlitt has well said that "There is no class of society whom so +many persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the +stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always +recal to us pleasant associations." {21} When they have strutted +and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no +more--but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are happy in +their old age. When they have passed for the last time from behind +that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let +them not pass away into gloom and darkness,--but let them pass into +cheerfulness and light--into a contented and happy home. + +This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar +with the English character not to know that it will be effected. +When we come suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn +features of a familiar face--crossing us like the ghost of pleasant +hours long forgotten--let us not recal those features with pain, in +sad remembrance of what they once were, but let us in joy recognise +it, and go back a pace or two to meet it once again, as that of a +friend who has beguiled us of a moment of care, who has taught us +to sympathize with virtuous grief, cheating us to tears for sorrows +not our own--and we all know how pleasant are such tears. Let such +a face be ever remembered as that of our benefactor and our friend. + +I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in +any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some +pleasant association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, out +of my varied experience, I could not remember even one from which I +had not brought some favourable impression, and that, commencing +with the period when I believed the clown was a being born into the +world with infinite pockets, and ending with that in which I saw +the other night, outside one of the "Royal Saloons," a playbill +which showed me ships completely rigged, carrying men, and +careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans. And now, +bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, I +beg to propose that you drink as heartily and freely as ever a +toast was drunk in this toast-drinking city "Prosperity to the +General Theatrical Fund." + + + +SPEECH: LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847. + + + +[On the above evening a Soiree of the Leeds Mechanics' Institution +took place, at which about 1200 persons were present. The chair +was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--Believe me, speaking to you with a most +disastrous cold, which makes my own voice sound very strangely in +my ears--that if I were not gratified and honoured beyond +expression by your cordial welcome, I should have considered the +invitation to occupy my present position in this brilliant +assemblage in itself a distinction not easy to be surpassed. The +cause in which we are assembled and the objects we are met to +promote, I take, and always have taken to be, THE cause and THE +objects involving almost all others that are essential to the +welfare and happiness of mankind. And in a celebration like the +present, commemorating the birth and progress of a great +educational establishment, I recognise a something, not limited to +the spectacle of the moment, beautiful and radiant though it be-- +not limited even to the success of the particular establishment in +which we are more immediately interested--but extending from this +place and through swarms of toiling men elsewhere, cheering and +stimulating them in the onward, upward path that lies before us +all. Wherever hammers beat, or wherever factory chimneys smoke, +wherever hands are busy, or the clanking of machinery resounds-- +wherever, in a word, there are masses of industrious human beings +whom their wise Creator did not see fit to constitute all body, but +into each and every one of whom He breathed a mind--there, I would +fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is felt from +our collective pulse now beating in this Hall. + +Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at the report of +your Institution for the present year sent to me by your respected +President--whom I cannot help feeling it, by-the-bye, a kind of +crime to depose, even thus peacefully, and for so short a time--I +say, glancing over this report, I found one statement of fact in +the very opening which gave me an uncommon satisfaction. It is, +that a great number of the members and subscribers are among that +class of persons for whose advantage Mechanics' Institutions were +originated, namely, persons receiving weekly wages. This +circumstance gives me the greatest delight. I am sure that no +better testimony could be borne to the merits and usefulness of +this Institution, and that no better guarantee could be given for +its continued prosperity and advancement. + +To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, there may yet +reappear now and then the spectral shadow of a certain dead and +buried opposition; but before the light of a steady trust in them +on the part of the general people, bearing testimony to the +virtuous influences of such Institutions by their own intelligence +and conduct, the ghost will melt away like early vapour from the +ground. Fear of such Institutions as these! We have heard people +sometimes speak with jealousy of them,--with distrust of them! +Imagine here, on either hand, two great towns like Leeds, full of +busy men, all of them feeling necessarily, and some of them +heavily, the burdens and inequalities inseparable from civilized +society. In this town there is ignorance, dense and dark; in that +town, education--the best of education; that which the grown man +from day to day and year to year furnishes for himself and +maintains for himself, and in right of which his education goes on +all his life, instead of leaving off, complacently, just when he +begins to live in the social system. Now, which of these two towns +has a good man, or a good cause, reason to distrust and dread? +"The educated one," does some timid politician, with a marvellously +weak sight, say (as I have heard such politicians say), "because +knowledge is power, and because it won't do to have too much power +abroad." Why, ladies and gentlemen, reflect whether ignorance be +not power, and a very dreadful power. Look where we will, do we +not find it powerful for every kind of wrong and evil? Powerful to +take its enemies to its heart, and strike its best friends down-- +powerful to fill the prisons, the hospitals, and the graves-- +powerful for blind violence, prejudice, and error, in all their +gloomy and destructive shapes. Whereas the power of knowledge, if +I understand it, is, to bear and forbear; to learn the path of duty +and to tread it; to engender that self-respect which does not stop +at self, but cherishes the best respect for the best objects--to +turn an always enlarging acquaintance with the joys and sorrows, +capabilities and imperfections of our race to daily account in +mildness of life and gentleness of construction and humble efforts +for the improvement, stone by stone, of the whole social fabric. + +I never heard but one tangible position taken against educational +establishments for the people, and that was, that in this or that +instance, or in these or those instances, education for the people +has failed. And I have never traced even this to its source but I +have found that the term education, so employed, meant anything but +education--implied the mere imperfect application of old, ignorant, +preposterous spelling-book lessons to the meanest purposes--as if +you should teach a child that there is no higher end in +electricity, for example, than expressly to strike a mutton-pie out +of the hand of a greedy boy--and on which it is as unreasonable to +found an objection to education in a comprehensive sense, as it +would be to object altogether to the combing of youthful hair, +because in a certain charity school they had a practice of combing +it into the pupils' eyes. + +Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of this +Institution, on whose behalf we are met; and I start with the +education given there, and I find that it really is an education +that is deserving of the name. I find that there are papers read +and lectures delivered, on a variety of subjects of interest and +importance. I find that there are evening classes formed for the +acquisition of sound, useful English information, and for the study +of those two important languages, daily becoming more important in +the business of life,--the French and German. I find that there is +a class for drawing, a chemical class, subdivided into the +elementary branch and the manufacturing branch, most important +here. I find that there is a day-school at twelve shillings a +quarter, which small cost, besides including instruction in all +that is useful to the merchant and the man of business, admits to +all the advantages of the parent institution. I find that there is +a School of Design established in connexion with the Government +School; and that there was in January this year, a library of +between six and seven thousand books. Ladies and gentlemen, if any +man would tell me that anything but good could come of such +knowledge as this, all I can say is, that I should consider him a +new and most lamentable proof of the necessity of such +institutions, and should regard him in his own person as a +melancholy instance of what a man may come to by never having +belonged to one or sympathized with one. + +There is one other paragraph in this report which struck my eye in +looking over it, and on which I cannot help offering a word of +joyful notice. It is the steady increase that appears to have +taken place in the number of lady members--among whom I hope I may +presume are included some of the bright fair faces that are +clustered around me. Gentlemen, I hold that it is not good for man +to be alone--even in Mechanics' Institutions; and I rank it as very +far from among the last or least of the merits of such places, that +he need not be alone there, and that he is not. I believe that the +sympathy and society of those who are our best and dearest friends +in infancy, in childhood, in manhood, and in old age, the most +devoted and least selfish natures that we know on earth, who turn +to us always constant and unchanged, when others turn away, should +greet us here, if anywhere, and go on with us side by side. + +I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own proper senses at this +moment, that there are charms and graces in such greetings, such as +no other greeting can possess. I know that in every beautiful work +of the Almighty hand, which is illustrated in your lectures, and in +every real or ideal portraiture of fortitude and goodness that you +find in your books, there is something that must bring you home +again to them for its brightest and best example. And therefore, +gentlemen, I hope that you will never be without them, or without +an increasing number of them in your studies and your +commemorations; and that an immense number of new marriages, and +other domestic festivals naturally consequent upon those marriages, +may be traced back from time to time to the Leeds Mechanics' +Institution. + +There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their public +position and service, or endeared to you by frequent intercourse, +or by their zealous efforts on behalf of the cause which brings us +together; and to them I shall beg leave to refer you for further +observations on this happy and interesting occasion; begging to +congratulate you finally upon the occasion itself; upon the +prosperity and thriving prospects of your institution; and upon our +common and general good fortune in living in these times, when the +means of mental culture and improvement are presented cheaply, +socially, and cheerfully, and not in dismal cells or lonely +garrets. And lastly, I congratulate myself, I assure you most +heartily, upon the part with which I am honoured on an occasion so +congenial to my warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank +you for such evidences of your good-will, as I never can coldly +remember and never forget. + + +[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr, Dickens said:-] + + +Ladies and Gentlemen,--It is a great satisfaction to me that this +question has been put by the Mayor, inasmuch as I hope I may +receive it as a token that he has forgiven me those extremely large +letters, which I must say, from the glimpse I caught of them when I +arrived in the town, looked like a leaf from the first primer of a +very promising young giant. + +I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of this +evening, that after what I have seen, and the excellent speeches I +have heard from gentlemen of so many different callings and +persuasions, meeting here as on neutral ground, I do more strongly +and sincerely believe than I ever have in my life,--and that is +saying a great deal,--that institutions such as this will be the +means of refining and improving that social edifice which has been +so often mentioned to-night, until,--unlike that Babel tower that +would have taken heaven by storm,--it shall end in sweet accord and +harmony amongst all classes of its builders. + +Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily I bid you good +night and good-bye, and I trust the next time we meet it will be in +even greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that we often shall +meet again, to recal this evening, then of the past, and remember +it as one of a series of increasing triumphs of your excellent +institution. + + + +SPEECH: GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847. + + + +[The first Soiree, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow +Athenaeum took place on the above evening in the City Hall. Mr. +Charles Dickens presided, and made the following speech:] + +Ladies and gentlemen--Let me begin by endeavouring to convey to you +the assurance that not even the warmth of your reception can +possibly exceed, in simple earnestness, the cordiality of the +feeling with which I come amongst you. This beautiful scene and +your generous greeting would naturally awaken, under any +circumstances, no common feeling within me; but when I connect them +with the high purpose of this brilliant assembly--when I regard it +as an educational example and encouragement to the rest of +Scotland--when I regard it no less as a recognition on the part of +everybody here of the right, indisputable and inalienable, of all +those who are actively engaged in the work and business of life to +elevate and improve themselves so far as in them lies, by all good +means--I feel as if I stand here to swear brotherhood to all the +young men in Glasgow;--and I may say to all the young women in +Glasgow; being unfortunately in no position to take any tenderer +vows upon myself--and as if we were pledged from this time +henceforth to make common cause together in one of the most +laudable and worthy of human objects. + +Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a design +as that which brings us together this night; for without it, +nothing can be done, but with it, everything. It is a common cause +of right, God knows; for it is idle to suppose that the advantages +of such an institution as the Glasgow Athenaeum will stop within +its own walls or be confined to its own members. Through all the +society of this great and important city, upwards to the highest +and downwards to the lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good. +Downward in a clearer perception of, and sympathy with, those +social miseries which can be alleviated, and those wide-open doors +to vice and crime that can be shut and barred; and upward in a +greater intelligence, increased efficiency, and higher knowledge, +of all who partake of its benefits themselves, or who communicate, +as all must do, in a greater or less degree, some portion to the +circle of relatives or friends in which they move. + +Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however high +his social position, or however great his attainments, that he +might not find something to be learnt even from immediate contact +with such institutions. If he only saw the goddess Knowledge +coming out of her secluded palaces and high places to mingle with +the throng, and to give them shining glimpses of the delights which +were long kept hoarded up, he might learn something. If he only +saw the energy and the courage with which those who earn their +daily bread by the labour of their hands or heads, come night after +night, as to a recreation, to that which was, perhaps, the whole +absorbing business of his youth, there might still be something +very wholesome for him to learn. But when he could see in such +places their genial and reviving influences, their substituting of +the contemplation of the beauties of nature and art, and of the +wisdom of great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid idleness- +-at any rate he would learn this--that it is at once the duty and +the interest of all good members of society to encourage and +protect them. + +I took occasion to say at an Athenaeum in Yorkshire a few weeks +since, and I think it a point most important to be borne in mind on +such commemorations as these, that when such societies are objected +to, or are decried on the ground that in the views of the +objectors, education among the people has not succeeded, the term +education is used with not the least reference to its real meaning, +and is wholly misunderstood. Mere reading and writing is not +education; it would be quite as reasonable to call bricks and +mortar architecture--oils and colours art--reeds and cat-gut music- +-or the child's spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or +Bacon--as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, and +to visit on that most abused and slandered word their failure in +any instance; and precisely because they were not education; +because, generally speaking, the word has been understood in that +sense a great deal too long; because education for the business of +life, and for the due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least +as important from day to day to the grown person as to the child; +because real education, in the strife and contention for a +livelihood, and the consequent necessity incumbent on a great +number of young persons to go into the world when they are very +young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these things that +I look upon mechanics' institutions and athenaeums as vitally +important to the well-being of society. It is because the +rudiments of education may there be turned to good account in the +acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope, +faith, and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because +of that, I take it, that you have met in education's name to-night. + +It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf +of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a +vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself +singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope +that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when +it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its +youth. It has already passed through some of the disorders to +which children are liable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a +very meritorious character, but of rather a weak constitution, and +which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a +destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded +this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a sea of +troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its +pulse has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it was +expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have +even gone so far as to walk off once or twice in the melancholy +belief that it was dead. Through all that, assisted by the +indomitable energy of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be +sufficiently grateful, it came triumphantly, and now, of all the +youthful members of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest +attitude, the healthiest look, the brightest and most cheerful air. +I find the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a reading-room, +a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with lectures given and +in progress, in sound, useful and well-selected subjects; I find it +with morning and evening classes for mathematics, logic, grammar, +music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by upwards of +five hundred persons; but, best and first of all and what is to me +more satisfactory than anything else in the history of the +institution, I find that all, this has been mainly achieved by the +young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And, +ladies and gentlemen, as the axiom, "Heaven helps those who help +themselves," is truer in no case than it is in this, I look to the +young men of Glasgow, from such a past and such a present, to a +noble future. Everything that has been done in any other +athenaeum, I confidently expect to see done here; and when that +shall be the case, and when there shall be great cheap schools in +connexion with the institution, and when it has bound together for +ever all its friends, and brought over to itself all those who look +upon it as an objectionable institution,--then, and not till then, +I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their labours, and +think their study done. + +If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in +this wise, they have one beside them in the presence of their fair +townswomen, which is irresistible. It is a most delightful +circumstance to me, and one fraught with inestimable benefits to +institutions of this kind, that at a meeting of this nature those +who in all things are our best examples, encouragers, and friends, +are not excluded. The abstract idea of the Graces was in ancient +times associated with those arts which refine the human +understanding; and it is pleasant to see now, in the rolling of the +world, the Graces popularising the practice of those arts by their +example, and adorning it with their presence. + +I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenaeum there is a +peculiar bond of union between the institution and the fairest part +of creation. I understand that the necessary addition to the small +library of books being difficult and expensive to make, the ladies +have generally resolved to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the +proceeds to this admirable purpose; and I learn with no less +pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in a graceful and womanly +sense of the excellence of this design, has consented that the +bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. I can only say, +that if you do not find something very noble in your books after +this, you are much duller students than I take you to be. The +ladies--the single ladies, at least--however disinterested I know +they are by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of +the advantages of these books, by never marrying any but members of +the Athenaeum. It seems to me it ought to be the pleasantest +library in the world. + +Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of some +familiar writer of fiction, "How long since I first became +acquainted with these characters; what old-fashioned friends they +seem; and yet I am not tired of them like so many other friends, +nor they of me." In this case the books will not only possess all +the attractions of their own friendships and charms, but also the +manifold--I may say womanfold--associations connected with their +donors. I can imagine how, in fact, from these fanciful +associations, some fair Glasgow widow may be taken for the remoter +one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; I can imagine how +Sophia's muff may be seen and loved, but not by Tom Jones, going +down the High Street on any winter day; or I can imagine the +student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart of the +Glasgow Athenaeum, and taking into consideration the history of +Europe without the consent of Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, in +short, how through all the facts and fictions of this library, +these ladies will be always active, and that + + +"Age will not wither them, nor custom stale +Their infinite variety." + + +It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, that +this meeting has been held at this genial season of the year, when +a new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate +the birth of that divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest +knowledge into the humblest places, and whose great system +comprehended all mankind. I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at +this time of the year, when many scattered friends and families are +re-assembled, for the members of this institution to be calling men +together from all quarters, with a brotherly view to the general +good, and a view to the general improvement; as I consider that +such designs are practically worthy of the faith we hold, and a +practical remembrance of the words, "On earth peace, and good will +toward men." I hope that every year which dawns on your +Institution, will find it richer in its means of usefulness, and +grayer-headed in the honour and respect it has gained. It can +hardly speak for itself more appropriately than in the words of an +English writer, when contemplating the English emblem of this +period of the year, the holly-tree:- + + +[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of +Southey's poem, The Holly Tree. + +In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then +Mr.) Alison, Mr. Dickens said:] + + +Ladies and Gentlemen,--I am no stranger--and I say it with the +deepest gratitude--to the warmth of Scottish hearts; but the warmth +of your present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of +acknowledging it. I will not detain you any longer at this late +hour; let it suffice to assure you, that for taking the part with +which I have been honoured in this festival, I have been repaid a +thousand-fold by your abundant kindness, and by the unspeakable +gratification it has afforded me. I hope that, before many years +are past, we may have another meeting in public, when we shall +rejoice at the immense progress your institution will have made in +the meantime, and look back upon this night with new pleasure and +satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion, repeat most heartily and +fervently the quotation of Dr. Ewing, the late Provost of Glasgow, +which Bailie Nicol Jarvie, himself "a Glasgow body," observed was +"elegantly putten round the town's arms." + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851. + + + +[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held at +the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied +the chair, and in giving the toast of the evening said:-] + +I have so often had the satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in +this place, to the usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose +behalf we are assembled, that I should be really sensible of the +disadvantage of having now nothing to say in proposing the toast +you all anticipate, if I were not well assured that there is really +nothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you on the old +grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could render those grounds of +greater weight than they have hitherto successfully proved to you. + +Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other +public societies and endowments, is represented by no building, +whether of stone, or brick, or glass, like that astonishing +evidence of the skill and energy of my friend Mr. Paxton, which all +the world is now called upon to admire, and the great merit of +which, as you learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to +have fallen down long before it was built, and yet that it would by +no means consent to doing so--although, I say, this Association +possesses no architectural home, it is nevertheless as plain a +fact, rests on as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front, +as any building, in the world. And the best and the utmost that +its exponent and its advocate can do, standing here, is to point it +out to those who gather round it, and to say, "judge for +yourselves." + +It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that portion +of the company whose previous acquaintance with it may have been +limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose +benefits are confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It +is a society whose claims are always preferred in the name of the +whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted +to a state of theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more +suited to present theatrical requirements than a string of pack- +horses would be suited to the conveyance of traffic between London +and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentleman, with the gout in +his vitals, brushed and got-up once a year to look as vigorous as +possible, and brought out for a public airing by the few survivors +of a large family of nephews and nieces, who afterwards double-lock +the street-door upon the poor relations. It is not a theatrical +association which insists that no actor can share its bounty who +has not walked so many years on those boards where the English +tongue is never heard--between the little bars of music in an +aviary of singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan of Avon is +never admitted--that bounty which was gathered in the name and for +the elevation of an all-embracing art. + +No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind. This +is a theatrical association, expressly adapted to the wants and to +the means of the whole theatrical profession all over England. It +is a society in which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It +is a society which includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or +Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in +the one person, the whole King's army. He may do the "light +business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may +be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still +unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred +years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother +in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family +appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they +sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or +he may be the baron who gives the fete, and who sits uneasily on +the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the fete is going +on. Or he may be the peasant at the fete who comes on the stage to +swell the drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always +turns his glass upside down before he begins to drink out of it. +Or he may be the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house +where the evening party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman +who issues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated +into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy +who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional visit +to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the +witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom +I have observed in country places, that he is much less like the +notion formed from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or +Donalbain of the previous scenes. This society, in short, says, +"Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in your +profession never so high, or never so low, never so haughty, or +never so humble, we offer you the means of doing good to +yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren." + +This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a +class of men to take care of their own interests, and giving a +continuous security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and +effort. The actor by the means of this society obtains his own +right, to no man's wrong; and when, in old age, or in disastrous +times, he makes his claim on the institution, he is enabled to say, +"I am neither a beggar, nor a suppliant. I am but reaping what I +sowed long ago." And therefore it is that I cannot hold out to you +that in assisting this fund you are doing an act of charity in the +common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses of that much +abused term, none have more raised my indignation than what I have +heard in this room in past times, in reference to this institution. +I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the wagoner +who has resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has +NOT stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an +act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and +this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those +who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to +pretend to entreat from you an act of charity. + +I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own heart, +and confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments for the +actor's art? Not peculiarly because it is a profession often +pursued, and as it were marked, by poverty and misfortune--for +other callings, God knows, have their distresses--nor because the +actor has sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering, +ay, even of death itself, to play his part before us--for all of +us, in our spheres, have as often to do violence to our feelings +and to hide our hearts in fighting this great battle of life, and +in discharging our duties and responsibilities. But the art of the +actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous, +which we are all familiar with. If any man were to tell me that he +denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him +one question--whether he remembered his first play? + +If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to that +great night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world which +then opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear favourably of the +effect upon your liberality on this occasion from our Secretary. + +This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind--the sixth time we +have had this fine child down after dinner. His nurse, a very +worthy person of the name of Buckstone, who has an excellent +character from several places, will presently report to you that +his chest is perfectly sound, and that his general health is in the +most thriving condition. Long may it be so; long may it thrive and +grow; long may we meet (it is my sincere wish) to exchange our +congratulations on its prosperity; and longer than the line of +Banquo may be that line of figures which, as its patriotic share in +the national debt, a century hence shall be stated by the Governor +and Company of the Bank of England. + + + +SPEECH: THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856. + + + +[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund was established in +1790, its object being to administer assistance to authors of +genius and learning, who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable +calamities, or deprived, by enfeebled faculties or declining life, +of the power of literary exertion. At the annual general meeting +held at the house of the society on the above date, the following +speech was made by Mr. Charles Dickens:] + +Sir,--I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in the +profession of literature, represents upon this committee a separate +and distinct branch of the profession, that, like + + +"The last rose of summer +Stands blooming alone, +While all its companions +Are faded and gone," + + +into the very prickly bramble-bush with which he has ingeniously +contrived to beset this question. In the remarks I have to make I +shall confine myself to four points: --1. That the committee find +themselves in the painful condition of not spending enough money, +and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending +more. 2. That with regard to the house, it is a positive matter +of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious +was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and +which the administrators of the fund decline to recognise. 3. +That, in Mr. Bell's endeavours to remove the Artists' Fund from the +ground of analogy it unquestionably occupies with reference to this +fund, by reason of their continuing periodical relief to the same +persons, I beg to tell Mr. Bell what every gentleman at that table +knows--that it is the business of this fund to relieve over and +over again the same people. + +MR. BELL: But fresh inquiry is always made first. + +MR. C. DICKENS: I can only oppose to that statement my own +experience when I sat on that committee, and when I have known +persons relieved on many consecutive occasions without further +inquiry being made. As to the suggestion that we should select the +items of expenditure that we complain of, I think it is according +to all experience that we should first affirm the principle that +the expenditure is too large. If that be done by the meeting, then +I will proceed to the selection of the separate items. Now, in +rising to support this resolution, I may state at once that I have +scarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy to +think it will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of +the resolution's case that it should not be carried, because it +will show the determination of the fund's managers. Nothing can +possibly be stronger in favour of the resolution than that the +statement should go forth to the world that twice within twelve +months the attention of the committee has been called to this great +expenditure, and twice the committee have considered that it was +not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger case for the +resolution than this statement of fact as to the expenditure going +forth to the public accompanied by the committee's assertion that +it is reasonable. Now, to separate this question from details, let +us remember what the committee and their supporters asserted last +year, and, I hope, will re-assert this year. It seems to be rather +the model kind of thing than otherwise now that if you get 100 +pounds you are to spend 40 pounds in management; and if you get +1000 pounds, of course you may spend 400 pounds in giving the rest +away. Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned people here +who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I +will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly +respectable place of resort, Willis's Rooms, in St. James's, to a +meeting of this fund. My original intention was to hear all I +could, and say as little as possible. Allowing for the absence of +the younger and fairer portion of the creation, the general +appearance of the place was something like Almack's in the morning. +A number of stately old dowagers sat in a row on one side, and old +gentlemen on the other. The ball was opened with due solemnity by +a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the secretary, at which +the audience were much affected. Then another party advanced, who, +I am sorry to say, was only a member of the House of Commons, and +he took possession of the floor. To him, however, succeeded a +lord, then a bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord, then one +or two celebrities from the City and Stock Exchange, and at last a +gentleman, who made a fortune by the success of "Candide," +sustained the part of Pangloss, and spoke much of what he evidently +believed to be the very best management of this best of all +possible funds. Now it is in this fondness for being stupendously +genteel, and keeping up fine appearances--this vulgar and common +social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price, that +the money goes. The last time you got a distinguished writer at a +public meeting, and he was called on to address you somewhere +amongst the small hours, he told you he felt like the man in plush +who was permitted to sweep the stage down after all the other +people had gone. If the founder of this society were here, I +should think he would feel like a sort of Rip van Winkle reversed, +who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years and woke up to +find his fund still lying under the feet of people who did nothing +for it instead of being emancipated and standing alone long ago. +This Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for show, +and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his +official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.) +When one enters the house it appears to be haunted by a series of +mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide about engaged in some +extraordinary occupation, and, after the approved fashion of +ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What are +all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I +say, as a writer by profession, that the long inquiry said to be +necessary to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a +preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have a +far better knowledge of the cases coming before the board than can +ever be attained by that committee. Further, I say openly and +plainly, that this fund is pompously and unnaturally administered +at great expense, instead of being quietly administered at small +expense; and that the secrecy to which it lays claim as its +greatest attribute, is not kept; for through those "two respectable +householders," to whom reference must be made, the names of the +most deserving applicants are to numbers of people perfectly well +known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of +fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they +are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg most earnestly and +respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this +institution, that must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what +the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not for. The question +raised by the resolution is whether this is a public corporation +for the relief of men of genius and learning, or whether it is a +snug, traditional, and conventional party, bent upon maintaining +its own usages with a vast amount of pride; upon its own annual +puffery at costly dinner-tables, and upon a course of expensive +toadying to a number of distinguished individuals. This is the +question which you cannot this day escape. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857. + + + +[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and Clerks +Schools, which took place on Thursday evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at +the London Tavern, and was very numerously attended, Mr. Charles +Dickens occupied the chair. On the subject which had brought the +company together Mr. Dickens spoke as follows:-] + +I must now solicit your attention for a few minutes to the cause of +your assembling together--the main and real object of this +evening's gathering; for I suppose we are all agreed that the motto +of these tables is not "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we +die;" but, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we live." It is +because a great and good work is to live to-morrow, and to-morrow, +and to-morrow, and to live a greater and better life with every +succeeding to-morrow, that we eat and drink here at all. +Conspicuous on the card of admission to this dinner is the word +"Schools." This set me thinking this morning what are the sorts of +schools that I don't like. I found them on consideration, to be +rather numerous. I don't like to begin with, and to begin as +charity does at home--I don't like the sort of school to which I +once went myself--the respected proprietor of which was by far the +most ignorant man I have ever had the pleasure to know; one of the +worst-tempered men perhaps that ever lived, whose business it was +to make as much out of us and put as little into us as possible, +and who sold us at a figure which I remember we used to delight to +estimate, as amounting to exactly 2 pounds 4s. 6d. per head. I +don't like that sort of school, because I don't see what business +the master had to be at the top of it instead of the bottom, and +because I never could understand the wholesomeness of the moral +preached by the abject appearance and degraded condition of the +teachers who plainly said to us by their looks every day of their +lives, "Boys, never be learned; whatever you are, above all things +be warned from that in time by our sunken cheeks, by our poor +pimply noses, by our meagre diet, by our acid-beer, and by our +extraordinary suits of clothes, of which no human being can say +whether they are snuff-coloured turned black, or black turned +snuff-coloured, a point upon which we ourselves are perfectly +unable to offer any ray of enlightenment, it is so very long since +they were undarned and new." I do not like that sort of school, +because I have never yet lost my ancient suspicion touching that +curious coincidence that the boy with four brothers to come always +got the prizes. In fact, and short, I do not like that sort of +school, which is a pernicious and abominable humbug, altogether. +Again, ladies and gentlemen, I don't like that sort of school--a +ladies' school--with which the other school used to dance on +Wednesdays, where the young ladies, as I look back upon them now, +seem to me always to have been in new stays and disgrace--the +latter concerning a place of which I know nothing at this day, that +bounds Timbuctoo on the north-east--and where memory always depicts +the youthful enthraller of my first affection as for ever standing +against a wall, in a curious machine of wood, which confined her +innocent feet in the first dancing position, while those arms, +which should have encircled my jacket, those precious arms, I say, +were pinioned behind her by an instrument of torture called a +backboard, fixed in the manner of a double direction post. Again, +I don't like that sort of school, of which we have a notable +example in Kent, which was established ages ago by worthy scholars +and good men long deceased, whose munificent endowments have been +monstrously perverted from their original purpose, and which, in +their distorted condition, are struggled for and fought over with +the most indecent pertinacity. Again, I don't like that sort of +school--and I have seen a great many such in these latter times-- +where the bright childish imagination is utterly discouraged, and +where those bright childish faces, which it is so very good for the +wisest among us to remember in after life--when the world is too +much with us, early and late {22}--are gloomily and grimly scared +out of countenance; where I have never seen among the pupils, +whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots and small +calculating machines. Again, I don't by any means like schools in +leather breeches, and with mortified straw baskets for bonnets, +which file along the streets in long melancholy rows under the +escort of that surprising British monster--a beadle, whose system +of instruction, I am afraid, too often presents that happy union of +sound with sense, of which a very remarkable instance is given in a +grave report of a trustworthy school inspector, to the effect that +a boy in great repute at school for his learning, presented on his +slate, as one of the ten commandments, the perplexing prohibition, +"Thou shalt not commit doldrum." Ladies and gentlemen, I confess, +also, that I don't like those schools, even though the instruction +given in them be gratuitous, where those sweet little voices which +ought to be heard speaking in very different accents, anathematise +by rote any human being who does not hold what is taught there. +Lastly, I do not like, and I did not like some years ago, cheap +distant schools, where neglected children pine from year to year +under an amount of neglect, want, and youthful misery far too sad +even to be glanced at in this cheerful assembly. + +And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permit me to sketch +in a few words the sort of school that I do like. It is a school +established by the members of an industrious and useful order, +which supplies the comforts and graces of life at every familiar +turning in the road of our existence; it is a school established by +them for the Orphan and Necessitous Children of their own brethren +and sisterhood; it is a place giving an education worthy of them-- +an education by them invented, by them conducted, by them watched +over; it is a place of education where, while the beautiful history +of the Christian religion is daily taught, and while the life of +that Divine Teacher who Himself took little children on His knees +is daily studied, no sectarian ill-will nor narrow human dogma is +permitted to darken the face of the clear heaven which they +disclose. It is a children's school, which is at the same time no +less a children's home, a home not to be confided to the care of +cold or ignorant strangers, nor, by the nature of its foundation, +in the course of ages to pass into hands that have as much natural +right to deal with it as with the peaks of the highest mountains or +with the depths of the sea, but to be from generation to generation +administered by men living in precisely such homes as those poor +children have lost; by men always bent upon making that +replacement, such a home as their own dear children might find a +happy refuge in if they themselves were taken early away. And I +fearlessly ask you, is this a design which has any claim to your +sympathy? Is this a sort of school which is deserving of your +support? + +This is the design, this is the school, whose strong and simple +claim I have to lay before you to-night. I must particularly +entreat you not to suppose that my fancy and unfortunate habit of +fiction has anything to do with the picture I have just presented +to you. It is sober matter of fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks' +Schools, established for the maintaining, clothing, and educating +of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those employed in the +wholesale trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom, are, in +fact, what I have just described. These schools for both sexes +were originated only four years ago. In the first six weeks of the +undertaking the young men of themselves and quite unaided, +subscribed the large sum of 3,000 pounds. The schools have been +opened only three years, they have now on their foundation thirty- +nine children, and in a few days they will have six more, making a +total of forty-five. They have been most munificently assisted by +the heads of great mercantile houses, numerously represented, I am +happy to say, around me, and they have a funded capital of almost +14,000 pounds. This is wonderful progress, but the aim must still +be upwards, the motto always "Excelsior." You do not need to be +told that five-and-forty children can form but a very small +proportion of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those who have +been entrusted with the wholesale trades and manufactures of the +United Kingdom: you do not require to be informed that the house +at New-cross, rented for a small term of years, in which the +schools are at present established, can afford but most imperfect +accommodation for such a breadth of design. To carry this good +work through the two remaining degrees of better and best there +must be more work, more co-operation, more friends, more money. +Then be the friends and give the money. Before I conclude, there +is one other feature in these schools which I would commend to your +special attention and approval. Their benefits are reserved for +the children of subscribers; that is to say, it is an essential +principle of the institution that it must help those whose parents +have helped them, and that the unfortunate children whose father +has been so lax, or so criminal, as to withhold a subscription so +exceedingly small that when divided by weeks it amounts to only +threepence weekly, cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle out and +shoulder away the happier children, whose father has had that +little forethought, or done that little kindness which was +requisite to secure for them the benefits of the institution. I +really cannot believe that there will long be any such defaulting +parents. I cannot believe that any of the intelligent young men +who are engaged in the wholesale houses will long neglect this +obvious, this easy duty. If they suppose that the objects of their +love, born or unborn, will never want the benefits of the charity, +that may be a fatal and blind mistake--it can never be an excuse, +for, supposing them to be right in their anticipation, they should +do what is asked for the sake of their friends and comrades around +them, assured that they will be the happier and the better for the +deed. + +Ladies and gentlemen, this little "labour of love" of mine is now +done. I most heartily wish that I could charm you now not to see +me, not to think of me, not to hear me--I most heartily wish that I +could make you see in my stead the multitude of innocent and +bereaved children who are looking towards these schools, and +entreating with uplifted hands to be let in. A very famous +advocate once said, in speaking of his fears of failure when he had +first to speak in court, being very poor, that he felt his little +children tugging at his skirts, and that recovered him. Will you +think of the number of little children who are tugging at my +skirts, when I ask you, in their names, on their behalf, and in +their little persons, and in no strength of my own, to encourage +and assist this work? + + +At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposed the health of +the President of the Institution, Lord John Russell. He said he +should do nothing so superfluous and so unnecessary as to descant +upon his lordship's many faithful, long, and great public services, +upon the honour and integrity with which he had pursued his +straightforward public course through every difficulty, or upon the +manly, gallant, and courageous character, which rendered him +certain, in the eyes alike of friends and opponents, to rise with +every rising occasion, and which, like the seal of Solomon, in the +old Arabian story, enclosed in a not very large casket the soul of +a giant. In answer to loud cheers, he said he had felt perfectly +certain, that that would be the response for in no English assembly +that he had ever seen was it necessary to do more than mention the +name of Lord John Russell to ensure a manifestation of personal +respect and grateful remembrance. + + + +SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 8, 1858. + + + +[The forty-eighth Anniversary of the establishment of the Artists' +Benevolent Fund took place on the above date at the Freemasons' +Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after +having disposed of the preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, +proceeded to advocate the claims of the Institution in whose +interest the company had assembled, in the following terms:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--There is an absurd theatrical story which +was once told to me by a dear and valued friend, who has now passed +from this sublunary stage, and which is not without its moral as +applied to myself, in my present presidential position. In a +certain theatrical company was included a man, who on occasions of +emergency was capable of taking part in the whole round of the +British drama, provided he was allowed to use his own language in +getting through the dialogue. It happened one night that Reginald, +in the Castle Spectre, was taken ill, and this veteran of a hundred +characters was, of course, called up for the vacant part. He +responded with his usual promptitude, although knowing nothing +whatever of the character, but while they were getting him into the +dress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish to know in some vague +way what the part was about. He was not particular as to details, +but in order that he might properly pourtray his sufferings, he +thought he should have some slight inkling as to what really had +happened to him. As, for example, what murders he had committed, +whose father he was, of what misfortunes he was the victim,--in +short, in a general way to know why he was in that place at all. +They said to him, "Here you are, chained in a dungeon, an unhappy +father; you have been here for seventeen years, during which time +you have never seen your daughter; you have lived upon bread and +water, and, in consequence, are extremely weak, and suffer from +occasional lowness of spirits."--"All right," said the actor of +universal capabilities, "ring up." When he was discovered to the +audience, he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was very +favourably received, and gave every sign of going on well, until, +through some mental confusion as to his instructions, he opened the +business of the act by stating in pathetic terms, that he had been +confined in that dungeon seventeen years, during which time he had +not tasted a morsel of food, to which circumstance he was inclined +to attribute the fact of his being at that moment very much out of +condition. The audience, thinking this statement exceedingly +improbable, declined to receive it, and the weight of that speech +hung round him until the end of his performance. + +Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the +honour of performing before you, and it behoves both you and me to +profit by the terrible warning I have detailed, while I endeavour +to make the part I have undertaken as plain and intelligible as I +possibly can. + +As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect +the business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking +prosperity to the Artists' Benevolent Fund, it becomes important +that we should know what that fund is. It is an Association +supported by the voluntary gifts of those who entertain a critical +and admiring estimation of art, and has for its object the granting +of annuities to the widows and children of deceased artists--of +artists who have been unable in their lives to make any provision +for those dear objects of their love surviving themselves. Now it +is extremely important to observe that this institution of an +Artists' Benevolent Fund, which I now call on you to pledge, has +connected with it, and has arisen out of another artists' +association, which does not ask you for a health, which never did, +and never will ask you for a health, which is self-supporting, and +which is entirely maintained by the prudence and providence of its +three hundred artist members. That fund, which is called the +Artists' Annuity Fund, is, so to speak, a joint and mutual +Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, and age. To the +benefits it affords every one of its members has an absolute right, +a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and self- +denial, and not assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion of +any human being. On that fund there are, if I remember a right, +some seventeen annuitants who are in the receipt of eleven hundred +a-year, the proceeds of their own self-supporting Institution. In +recommending to you this benevolent fund, which is not self- +supporting, they address you, in effect, in these words:- "We ask +you to help these widows and orphans, because we show you we have +first helped ourselves. These widows and orphans may be ours or +they may not be ours; but in any case we will prove to you to a +certainty that we are not so many wagoners calling upon Jupiter to +do our work, because we do our own work; each has his shoulder to +the wheel; each, from year to year, has had his shoulder set to the +wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter and all the gods is simply +this--that this fact may be remembered when the wagon has stopped +for ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies lifeless by the +roadside. + +"Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress on you +the strength of this appeal. I am a painter, a sculptor, or an +engraver, of average success. I study and work here for no immense +return, while life and health, while hand and eye are mine. I +prudently belong to the Annuity Fund, which in sickness, old age, +and infirmity, preserves me from want. I do my duty to those who +are depending on me while life remains; but when the grass grows +above my grave there is no provision for them any longer." + +This is the case with the Artists' Benevolent Fund, and in stating +this I am only the mouthpiece of three hundred of the trade, who in +truth stands as independent before you as if they were three +hundred Cockers all regulated by the Gospel according to +themselves. There are in existence three artists' funds, which +ought never to be mentioned without respect. I am an officer of +one of them, and can speak from knowledge; but on this occasion I +address myself to a case for which there is no provision. I +address you on behalf of those professors of the fine arts who have +made provision during life, and in submitting to you their claims I +am only advocating principles which I myself have always +maintained. + +When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to +gentility, squanders no treasure in keeping up appearances, that it +considers that the money given for the widow and the orphan, should +really be held for the widow and the orphan, I think I have +exhausted the case, which I desire most strenuously to commend to +you. + +Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I will not consent +to present to you the professors of Art as a set of helpless +babies, who are to be held up by the chin; I present them as an +energetic and persevering class of men, whose incomes depend on +their own faculties and personal exertions; and I also make so bold +as to present them as men who in their vocation render good service +to the community. I am strongly disposed to believe there are very +few debates in Parliament so important to the public welfare as a +really good picture. I have also a notion that any number of +bundles of the driest legal chaff that ever was chopped would be +cheaply expended for one really meritorious engraving. At a highly +interesting annual festival at which I have the honour to assist, +and which takes place behind two fountains, I sometimes observe +that great ministers of state and other such exalted characters +have a strange delight in rather ostentatiously declaring that they +have no knowledge whatever of art, and particularly of impressing +on the company that they have passed their lives in severe studies. +It strikes me when I hear these things as if these great men looked +upon the arts as a sort of dancing dogs, or Punch's show, to be +turned to for amusement when one has nothing else to do. Now I +always take the opportunity on these occasions of entertaining my +humble opinion that all this is complete "bosh;" and of asserting +to myself my strong belief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar +Square, or Suffolk Street, rightly understood, are quite as +important to the welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, +or Westminster Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and +backed by the recommendation of three hundred artists in favour of +the Benevolent Fund, I beg to propose its prosperity as a toast for +your adoption. + + + +SPEECH: THE FAREWELL READING. ST. JAMES'S HALL, MARCH 15, 1870. + + + +[With the "Christmas Carol" and "The Trial from Pickwick," Mr. +Charles Dickens brought to a brilliant close the memorable series +of public readings which have for sixteen years proved to audiences +unexampled in numbers, the source of the highest intellectual +enjoyment. Every portion of available space in the building was, +of course, last night occupied some time before the appointed hour; +but could the St. James's Hall have been specially enlarged for the +occasion to the dimensions of Salisbury Plain, it is doubtful +whether sufficient room would even then have been provided for all +anxious to seize the last chance of hearing the distinguished +novelist give his own interpretation of the characters called into +existence by his own creative pen. As if determined to convince +his auditors that, whatever reason had influenced his +determination, physical exhaustion was not amongst them, Mr. +Dickens never read with greater spirit and energy. His voice to +the last retained its distinctive clearness, and the transitions of +tone, as each personage in the story, conjured up by a word, rose +vividly before the eye, seemed to be more marvellous than ever. +The vast assemblage, hushed into breathless attention, suffered not +a syllable to escape the ear, and the rich humour and deep pathos +of one of the most delightful books ever written found once again +the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of merriment responsive +to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit's Christmas day, and the +wonted sympathy with the crippled child "Tiny Tim," found prompt +expression, and the general delight at hearing of Ebenezer +Scrooge's reformation was only checked by the saddening remembrance +that with it the last strain of the "carol" was dying away. After +the "Trial from Pickwick," in which the speeches of the opposing +counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge, seemed to be +delivered and depicted with greater dramatic power than ever, the +applause of the audience rang for several minutes through the hall, +and when it had subsided, Mr. Dickens, with evidently strong +emotion, but in his usual distinct and expressive manner, spoke as +follows:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--It would be worse than idle--for it would be +hypocritical and unfeeling--if I were to disguise that I close this +episode in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For +some fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I have +had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for +your recognition, and, in closely observing your reception of them, +have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction which, +perhaps, is given to few men to know. In this task, and in every +other I have ever undertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, +always imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to +do his best, I have been uniformly cheered by the readiest +response, the most generous sympathy, and the most stimulating +support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, at the full flood- +tide of your favour, to retire upon those older associations +between us, which date from much further back than these, and +henceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art that first +brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks +from this time I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a +new series of readings, at which my assistance will be +indispensable; {23} but from these garish lights I vanish now for +evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate +farewell. + +[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic description, +whilst hats and handkerchiefs were waving in every part of the +hall, Mr. Charles Dickens retired, withdrawing with him one of the +greatest intellectual treats the public ever enjoyed.] + + + +SPEECH: THE NEWSVENDORS' INSTITUTION, LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870. + + + +[The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the Newsvendors' +Benevolent and Provident Institution was held on the above evening, +at the Freemason's Tavern. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, and was +supported by the Sheriffs of the City of London and Middlesex. + +After the usual toasts had been given and responded to, + +The Chairman said that if the approved order of their proceedings +had been observed, the Corporation of the City of London would no +doubt have considered themselves snubbed if they were not toasted +by themselves. He was sure that a distinguished member of the +Corporation who was present would tell the company what the +Corporation were going to do; and he had not the slightest doubt +they were going to do something highly creditable to themselves, +and something highly serviceable to the whole metropolis; and if +the secret were not at present locked up in the blue chamber, they +would be all deeply obliged to the gentleman who would immediately +follow him, if he let them into it in the same confidence as he had +observed with respect to the Corporation of the City of London +being snubbed. He begged to give the toast of "The Corporation of +the City of London." + +Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, said for once, and +once only, had their chairman said an unkind word about the +Corporation of London. He had always reckoned Mr. Dickens to be +one of the warmest friends of the Corporation; and remembering that +he (Mr. Dickens) did really go through a Lord Mayor's Show in a +Lord Mayor's carriage, if he had not felt himself quite a Lord +Mayor, he must have at least considered himself next to one. + +In proposing the toast of the evening Mr, Dickens said:-] + +Ladies and gentlemen,--You receive me with so much cordiality that +I fear you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor's +state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information +received from Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour. +Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed a Lord +Mayor's show except from the point of view obtained by the other +vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in spite +of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet +what a blessing it is to you that I occupy this chair to-night, +because, having filled it on several previous occasions for the +society on whose behalf we are assembled, and having said +everything that I could think of to say about it, and being, +moreover, the president of the institution itself, I am placed to- +night in the modest position of a host who is not so much to +display himself as to call out his guests--perhaps even to try to +induce some among them to occupy his place on another occasion. +And, therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but +with a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather +to be the cause of speaking in others than to speak myself to- +night. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff +shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, +who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and +discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites +his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the +same line. + +It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman's +calling that no toast we have drunk to-night--and no toast we shall +drink to-night--and no toast we might, could, should, or would +drink to-night, is separable for a moment from that great inclusion +of all possible subjects of human interest which he delivers at our +doors every day. Further, it may be worthy the consideration of +everybody here who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour +since we have sat down at the table, what in the name of Heaven +should we have talked about, and how on earth could we have +possibly got on, if our newsman had only for one single day +forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is not by +any means in the habit of forgetting us, let us try to form a +little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us remember that +his work is very arduous; that it occupies him early and late; that +the profits he derives from us are at the best very small; that the +services he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, +his little capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, +anxieties, and hazards; and if he be a journeyman, he himself is +exposed to all manner of weathers, of tempers, and of difficult and +unreasonable requirements. + +Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, +which originated by chance. The subject was, What was the most +absorbing and longest-lived passion in the human breast? What was +the passion so powerful that it would almost induce the generous to +be mean, the careless to be cautious, the guileless to be deeply +designing, and the dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor of +vast experience and great acuteness, who was one of the company, +considerably surprised us by saying with the greatest confidence +that the passion in question was the passion of getting orders for +the play. + +There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of the +surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these on +making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper +office, with his story of how he had seen the ship go down before +his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most terrible +contention between the powers of fire and water for the destruction +of that ship and of every one on board. He had rowed away among +the floating, dying, and the sinking dead. He had floated by day, +and he had frozen by night, with no shelter and no food, and, as he +told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes about the room. +When he had finished, and the tale had been noted down from his +lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and soothed, and asked if +anything could be done for him. Even within him that master +passion was so strong that he immediately replied he should like an +order for the play. My friend the editor certainly thought that +was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of +experience he had witnessed an incurable amount of self-prostration +and abasement having no outer object, and that almost invariably on +the part of people who could well afford to pay. + +This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this +faith until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I was +kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of- +the-way town it represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman, +to whom I propounded, as we went along under my umbrella--he being +most excellent company--this old question, what was the one all- +absorbing passion of the human soul? He replied, without the +slightest hesitation, that it certainly was the passion for getting +your newspaper in advance of your fellow-creatures; also, if you +only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door at exactly the +same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles off; +and, finally, the invincible determination on the part of both men +not to believe the time was up when the boy called. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying +this experience with my friends of the managing committee, but I +have no doubt from its reception to-night that my friend the +newsman was perfectly right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a +sufficiently dark life, and as an assurance that among a little +body of working men there is a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy- +-which is worth much to all men, or they would herd with wolves-- +the newsvendors once upon a time established the Benevolent and +Provident Institution, and here it is. Under the Provident head, +certain small annuities are granted to old and hard-working +subscribers. Under the Benevolent head, relief is afforded to +temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, I am bound to say +the help rendered is very humble and very sparing, but if you like +it to be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. Such +as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a deal of good. +Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly administered; +and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for management or +patronage. + +You know upon an old authority, that you may believe anything +except facts and figures, but you really may believe that during +the last year we have granted 100 pounds in pensions, and some 70 +pounds in temporary relief, and we have invested in Government +securities some 400 pounds. But, touching this matter of +investments, it was suggested at the anniversary dinner, on the +high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips that we might +grant more pensions and invest less money. We urged, on the other +hand, that we wished our pensions to be certain and unchangeable-- +which of course they must be if they are always paid out of our +Government interest and never out of our capital. However, so +amiable is our nature, that we profess our desire to grant more +pensions and to invest more money too. The more you give us to- +night again, so amiable is our nature, the more we promise to do in +both departments. That the newsman's work has greatly increased, +and that it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you +may infer from one fact, not to mention that we live in railway +times. It is stated in Mitchell's "Newspaper Press Directory," +that during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers +which appeared in London had more than doubled, while the increase +in the number of people among whom they were disseminated was +probably beyond calculation. + +Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman's simple case. I +leave it in your hands. Within the last year the institution has +had the good fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support +of the eminent man of letters I am proud to call my friend, {24} +who now represents the great Republic of America at the British +Court. Also it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors +and vice-presidents the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose +to you to drink "Prosperity to the Newsvendors' Benevolent and +Provident Institution." + + + +SPEECH: MACREADY. LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851. + + + +[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr. +Macready entertained him at a public dinner. Upwards of six +hundred gentlemen assembled to do honour to the great actor on his +retirement from the stage. Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among +the other speakers were Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr. +Thackeray, Mr. John Forster, Mr. W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles +Dickens, who proposed "The Health of the Chairman" in the following +words:-] + +Gentlemen,--After all you have already heard, and so rapturously +received, I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind +welcome would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full +confidence in the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my +reliance on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I +am rather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on +which I have to throw my little shadow. + +Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites +essential to the perfect realisation of a scene so unusual and so +splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I +must say very difficult requisite, is a man possessing the +stronghold in the general remembrance, the indisputable claim on +the general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and +much valued friend our guest. The second requisite is the presence +of a body of entertainers,--a great multitude of hosts so cheerful +and good-humoured (under, I am sorry to say, some personal +inconvenience),--so warm-hearted and so nobly in earnest, as those +whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly +not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his +social position, which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune, +which may have been adventitiously won, and may be again +accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly +represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best +part of those who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I +think we have found in our chairman of to-night, and I need +scarcely add that our chairman's health is the toast I have to +propose to you. + +Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that +memorable scene on Wednesday night last, {25} when the great vision +which had been a delight and a lesson,--very often, I daresay, a +support and a comfort to you, which had for many years improved and +charmed us, and to which we had looked for an elevated relief from +the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will +not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked +backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remote +and distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off likeness +to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once served. Nor +will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in +the audience of Wednesday to seize upon the words - + + +"And I have brought, +Golden opinions from all sorts of people, +Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, +Not cast aside so soon--" {26} + + +but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how in +my mind I mainly connect that occasion with the present. When I +looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit +hushed into stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty +surging gallery, where men in their shirt-sleeves had been striking +out their arms like strong swimmers--when I saw that. boisterous +human flood become still water in a moment, and remain so from the +opening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something +besides the trustworthiness of an English crowd, and the delusion +under which those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it: +it suggested to me that in meeting here to-night we undertook to +represent something of the all-pervading feeling of that crowd, +through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, +with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, +to the half-undressed gentleman; who bides his time to take some +refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, +gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placed in this chair +could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so +well give the crowning grace to our festivities, as one whose +comprehensive genius has in his various works embraced them all, +and who has, in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them +all at once. + +Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have +heard this night, what I have seen and known in the bygone times of +Mr. Macready's management, of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer +Lytton for him, of the association of his pen with his earliest +successes, or of Mr. Macready's zealous and untiring services; but +it may be permitted me to say what, in any public mention of him I +can never repress, that in the path we both tread I have uniformly +found him from the first the most generous of men; quick to +encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert the order of +which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to shuffle it +off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave +his slippers outside a mosque. + +There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the effect +that authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not +invariably and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I +must concede half-a-grain or so of truth I to that superstition; +but this I know, that there can hardly be--that there hardly can +have been--among the followers of literature, a man of more high +standing farther above these little grudging jealousies, which do +sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. + +And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my +testimony to his great consideration for those evils which are +sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on him. For, +in conjunction with some other gentlemen now present, I have just +embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, to smoothe the rugged +way of young labourers, both in literature and the fine arts, and +to soften, but by no eleemosynary means, the declining years of +meritorious age. And if that project prosper as I hope it will, +and as I know it ought, it will one day be an honour to England +where there is now a reproach; originating in his sympathies, being +brought into operation by his activity, and endowed from its very +cradle by his generosity. There are many among you who will have +each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman's health, +resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified successes. +According to the nature of your reading, some of you will connect +him with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will +connect him with comedy, and another with the romantic passions of +the stage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest +struggle against those + + +"twin gaolers of the human heart, +Low birth and iron fortune." + + +Again, another's taste will lead him to the contemplation of Rienzi +and the streets of Rome; another's to the rebuilt and repeopled +streets of Pompeii; another's to the touching history of the +fireside where the Caxton family learned how to discipline their +natures and tame their wild hopes down. But, however various their +feelings and reasons may be, I am sure that with one accord each +will help the other, and all will swell the greeting, with which I +shall now propose to you "The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward +Bulwer Lytton." + + + +SPEECH: SANITARY REFORM. LONDON, MAY 10, 1851. + + + +[The members and friends of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association +dined together on the above evening at Gore House, Kensington. The +Earl of Carlisle occupied the chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was +present, and in proposing "The Board of Health," made the following +speech:-] + +There are very few words for me to say upon the needfulness of +sanitary reform, or the consequent usefulness of the Board of +Health. That no man can estimate the amount of mischief grown in +dirt,--that no man can say the evil stops here or stops there, +either in its moral or physical effects, or can deny that it begins +in the cradle and is not at rest in the miserable grave, is as +certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be carried by an +easterly wind into Mayfair, or that the furious pestilence raging +in St. Giles's no mortal list of lady patronesses can keep out of +Almack's. Fifteen years ago some of the valuable reports of Mr. +Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, strengthening and much enlarging +my knowledge, made me earnest in this cause in my own sphere; and I +can honestly declare that the use I have since that time made of my +eyes and nose have only strengthened the conviction that certain +sanitary reforms must precede all other social remedies, and that +neither education nor religion can do anything useful until the way +has been paved for their ministrations by cleanliness and decency. + +I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heard the +speech of the right reverend prelate {27} this evening--a speech +which no sanitary reformer can have heard without emotion. Of what +avail is it to send missionaries to the miserable man condemned to +work in a foetid court, with every sense bestowed upon him for his +health and happiness turned into a torment, with every month of his +life adding to the heap of evils under which he is condemned to +exist? What human sympathy within him is that instructor to +address? what natural old chord within him is he to touch? Is it +the remembrance of his children?--a memory of destitution, of +sickness, of fever, and of scrofula? Is it his hopes, his latent +hopes of immortality? He is so surrounded by and embedded in +material filth, that his soul cannot rise to the contemplation of +the great truths of religion. Or if the case is that of a +miserable child bred and nurtured in some noisome, loathsome place, +and tempted, in these better days, into the ragged school, what can +a few hours' teaching effect against the ever-renewed lesson of a +whole existence? But give them a glimpse of heaven through a +little of its light and air; give them water; help them to be +clean; lighten that heavy atmosphere in which their spirits flag +and in which they become the callous things they are; take the body +of the dead relative from the close room in which the living live +with it, and where death, being familiar, loses its awe; and then +they will be brought willingly to hear of Him whose thoughts were +so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all human +suffering. + +The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is entitled +to all the honour which can be conferred upon it. We have very +near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very +great thing can ever be accomplished without an immense amount of +abuse being heaped upon it. In connexion with the Board of Health +we are always hearing a very large word which is always pronounced +with a very great relish--the word centralization. Now I submit +that in the time of the cholera we had a pretty good opportunity of +judging between this so called centralization and what I may, I +think, call "vestrylisation." I dare say the company present have +read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I daresay they +have also read reports of certain vestries. I have the honour of +belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, the +Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will +look to what was done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and then +contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which +affairs were managed at the same period by my vestry, there will be +very little difficulty in judging between them. My vestry even +took upon itself to deny the existence of cholera as a weak +invention of the enemy, and that denial had little or no effect in +staying the progress of the disease. We can now contrast what +centralization is as represented by a few noisy and interested +gentlemen, and what centralization is when worked out by a body +combining business habits, sound medical and social knowledge, and +an earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the working classes. + +Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in a word not +so large as the other,--"Delay." I would suggest, in respect to +this, that it would be very unreasonable to complain that a first- +rate chronometer didn't go when its master had not wound it up. +The Board of Health may be excellently adapted for going and very +willing and anxious to go, and yet may not be permitted to go by +reason of its lawful master having fallen into a gentle slumber and +forgotten to set it a going. One of the speakers this evening has +referred to Lord Castlereagh's caution "not to halloo until they +were out of the wood." As regards the Board of Trade I would +suggest that they ought not to halloo until they are out of the +Woods and Forests. In that leafy region the Board of Health +suffers all sorts of delays, and this should always be borne in +mind. With the toast of the Board of Health I will couple the name +of a noble lord (Ashley), of whose earnestness in works of +benevolence, no man can doubt, and who has the courage on all +occasions to face the cant which is the worst and commonest of all- +-the cant about the cant of philanthropy. + + + +SPEECH: GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851. + + + +[At the anniversary dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent +Institution, held under the presidency of Mr., afterwards Sir +Joseph Paxton, Mr. Charles Dickens made the following speech:-] + +I feel an unbounded and delightful interest in all the purposes and +associations of gardening. Probably there is no feeling in the +human mind stronger than the love of gardening. The prisoner will +make a garden in his prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in +the chink of a wall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet +bean from one side of his window to the other, and watch it and +tend it with unceasing interest. It is a holy duty in foreign +countries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, and +here, too, the resting-places of those who have passed away from us +will soon be gardens. From that old time when the Lord walked in +the garden in the cool of the evening, down to the day when a Poet- +Laureate sang - + + +"Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, +From yon blue heaven above us bent +The gardener Adam and his wife +Smile at the claims of long descent," + + +at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst the objects +of the greatest interest to mankind. There may be a few, but I +believe they are but a few, who take no interest in the products of +gardening, except perhaps in "London Pride," or a certain +degenerate kind of "Stock," which is apt to grow hereabouts, +cultivated by a species of frozen-out gardeners whom no thaw can +ever penetrate: except these, the gardeners' art has contributed +to the delight of all men in their time. That there ought to be a +Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners is in the fitness of +things, and that such an institution ought to flourish and does +flourish is still more so. + +I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who is a +great gardener, and not only a great gardener but a great man--the +growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated up with a power of intellect +to a plant that is at this time the talk of the civilized world--I +allude, of course, to my friend the chairman of the day. I took +occasion to say at a public assembly hard-by, a month or two ago, +in speaking of that wonderful building Mr. Paxton has designed for +the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen +down, but that it refused to do so. We were told that the glass +ought to have been all broken, the gutters all choked up, and the +building flooded, and that the roof and sides ought to have been +blown away; in short that everything ought to have done what +everything obstinately persisted in not doing. Earth, air, fire, +and water all appear to have conspired together in Mr. Paxton's +favour--all have conspired together to one result, which, when the +present generation is dust, will be an enduring temple to his +honour, and to the energy, the talent, and the resources of +Englishmen. + +"But," said a gentleman to me the other day, "no doubt Mr. Paxton +is a great man, but there is one objection to him that you can +never get over, that is, he is a gardener." Now that is our case +to-night, that he is a gardener, and we are extremely proud of it. +This is a great age, with all its faults, when a man by the power +of his own genius and good sense can scale such a daring height as +Mr. Paxton has reached, and composedly place his form on the top. +This is a great age, when a man impressed with a useful idea can +carry out his project without being imprisoned, or thumb-screwed, +or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that you, to whom +the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the achievements of +our friend are well known, should be anxious to do him honour by +placing him in the position he occupies to-night; and I assure you, +you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in +permitting him to have the opportunity of proposing his health, +which that friend now does most cordially and with all the honours. + + + +SPEECH: THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. LONDON, MAY 2, 1870. + + + +[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in +their new galleries in Piccadilly, the President, Sir F. Grant, and +the council gave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very +distinguished company was present. The dinner took place in the +large central room, and covers were laid for 200 guests. The +Prince of Wales acknowledged the toast of his health and that of +the Princess, the Duke of Cambridge responded to the toast of the +army, Mr. Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to the volunteers, Mr. +Motley to "The Prosperity of the United States," Mr. Gladstone to +"Her Majesty's Ministers," the Archbishop of York to, "The Guests," +and Mr. Dickens to "Literature." The last toast having been +proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens responded.] + +Mr. President, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen,--I +beg to acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great +honour of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf +of the brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not +forgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy +return to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits--or lately +did sit--within a few chairs of or on your left hand. I hope I may +also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the sisterhood of +literature also, although that "better half of human nature," to +which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful tribute, is unworthily +represented here, in the present state of its rights and wrongs, by +the devouring monster, man. + +All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that women, +even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as +great distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men. +Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, +there is no saying how soon they may "push us from our stools" at +these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing +in this place of mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, +addressing another better half of human nature sitting in the +president's chair. + +The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me to +congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which +risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise +of a brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They +naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons of +great men--historians, philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly +illustrated around them here. And they hope that they may modestly +claim to have rendered some little assistance towards the +production of many of the pictures in this magnificent gallery. +For without the patient labours of some among them unhistoric +history might have long survived in this place, and but for the +researches and wandering of others among them, the most +preposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and the +absurdest superstitions, manners, and customs, might have usurped +the place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir +Francis Grant, what unlike portraits you yourself might have +painted if you had been left, with your sitters, to idle pens, +unchecked reckless rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence. + +I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme +(the recent death of Daniel Maclise) to which his Royal Highness +the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the president +referred with the eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first +entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my +constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and dearest friends +members of the Royal Academy who have been its grace and pride. +They have so dropped from my side one by one that I already, begin +to feel like the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown +to believe that the only realities around him were the pictures +which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had +seen, was a shadow and a dream. + +For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and most +constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his +chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his +prodigious fertility of mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I +may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had +been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. +The gentlest and most modest of men, the freshest as to his +generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and +largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble +thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, +without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at the last +as at the first, "in wit a man, simplicity a child," no artist, of +whatsoever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest +leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted +himself with a truer chivalry to the art goddess whom he +worshipped. + +[These were the last public words of Charles Dickens.] + + + + +Footnotes: + + + +{1} Sir David Wilkie died at sea, on board the Oriental, off +Gibraltar, on the 1st of June, 1841, whilst on his way back to +England. During the evening of the same day his body was committed +to the deep. --ED. + +{2} The Britannia was the vessel that conveyed Mr. Dickens across +the Atlantic, on his first visit to America--ED. + +{3} Master Humphrey's Clock, under which title the two novels of +Barnaby Rudge and The Old Curiosity Shop originally appeared.--ED. + +{4} "I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful +recollection of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many +friends there, whom I can never remember with indifference. We +left it with no little regret." American Notes (Lond. 1842). Vol. +I, p. 182. + +{5} See the Life and Letters of Washington Irving (Lond. 1863), p. +644, where Irving speaks of a letter he has received "from that +glorious fellow Dickens, in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my +heartfelt delight with his writings, and my yearnings toward +himself." See also the letter itself, in the second division of +this volume.--ED. + +{6} TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, then newly published in +collection of 1842.--ED + +{7} "That this meeting, while conveying its cordial thanks to +Charles Dickens, Esq., for his presence this evening, and for his +able and courteous conduct as President, cannot separate without +tendering the warmest expression of its gratitude and admiration to +one whose writings have so loyally inculcated the lessons of +benevolence and virtue, and so richly contributed to the stores of +public pleasure and instructions." + +{8} The Duke of Devonshire. + +{9} Charlotte Corday going to Execution. + +{10} The above is extracted from Mrs. Stowe's "Sunny Memories of +Foreign Lands,", a book in which her eaves-dropping propensities +were already developed in a sufficiently ugly form.--ED. + +{11} Alas! the "many years" were to be barely six, when the +speaker was himself destined to write some memorial pages +commemorative of his illustrious friend (Cornhill Magazine, +February, 1864.)--ED. + +{12} Mr. Henry Dodd had proposed to give five acres of land in +Berkshire, but, in consequence of his desiring to attach certain +restrictions, after a long and unsatisfactory correspondence, the +Committee, on 13th January following, rejected the offer. +(Communicated.) + +{13} Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons, Act iii. sc. 2. + +{14} Mr. B. Webster. + +{15} Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 1. + +{16} Robert Browning: Bells and Pomegranates. + +{17} R. H. + +{18} Carlyle's French Revolution. Book X., Chapter I. + +{19} Henry Thomas Buckle. + +{20} This and the Speeches which follow were accidentally omitted +in their right places. + +{21} Hazlitt's Round Table (Edinburgh, 1817, vol ii., p. 242), On +Actors and Acting. + +{22} An allusion to a well-known Sonnet of Wordsworth, beginning-- +"The world is too much with us--late and soon," &c.--ED. + +{23} Alluding to the forthcoming serial story of Edwin Drood. + +{24} The Honourable John Lothrop Motley. + +{25} February 26th, 1851. Mr. Macready's Farewell Benefit at +Drury Lane Theatre, on which occasion he played the part of +Macbeth.--ED. + +{26} MACBETH, Act I., sc. 7. + +{27} The Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Longley). + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL *** + +This file should be named dslas10.txt or dslas10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, dslas11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, dslas10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/dslas10.zip b/old/dslas10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..277df3f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dslas10.zip diff --git a/old/dslas10h.htm b/old/dslas10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd57f08 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dslas10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7271 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Speeches: Literary and Social</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Speeches: Literary and Social, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches: Literary and Social, by Charles Dickens +(#20 in our series by Charles Dickens) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Speeches: Literary and Social + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: February, 1997 [EBook #824] +[This file was first posted on March 1, 1997] +[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1880 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL BY CHARLES DICKENS</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided +over by the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his +health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as +follows:-]</p> +<p>If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better +able to thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened +to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could +have heard as you heard the “thoughts that breathe and words that +burn,” which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should +have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. +But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of +sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, +renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last +all heart and no lips, yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial +greeting - possessing, heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to +find the way.</p> +<p>The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me +very pleasing - a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. +I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known +and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, +in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared +us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; +I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued +together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart +from you.</p> +<p>It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. +But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to +say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt +an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the +stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not +utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. +I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil +things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. +I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the bye-ways of the +world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, +and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning +words of your Northern poet -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The rank is but the guinea stamp,<br />The man’s the +gowd for a’ that.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And in following this track, where could I have better assurance +that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer +me on than in your kindness on this to me memorable night?</p> +<p>I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in +reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested, +and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that +you were disappointed - I mean the death of the little heroine. +When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its +termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake +the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, +in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would +be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland +of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. +If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with +better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I +have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old +or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved +- something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. +Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion +of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from +the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The +Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an +adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on +blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. +These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, +and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. +But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that +many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation.</p> +<p>If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, +I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such +a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come +once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The +distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, +and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall +never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, +you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this +capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. +I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, +and even the very stones of her streets. And if in the future +works which may lie before me you should discern - God grant you may! +- a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to +this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. +I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in +each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far +easier emptied, I do assure you.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, +Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention +of which will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no +ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing +of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance +must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled +with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland - a literature +which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which +he has been for many years - as I hope and believe he will be for many +more - a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert +to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly +in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, +that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch - Christopher +North. I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be +a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day +hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye - but that +is no fiction - and the greyest hair in all the world - who wrote not +because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration +of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because +there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream +of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in +the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never +languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him +in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along +the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence +- I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to see twenty +Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all +light and no shadows, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which +I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh +sources of interest.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. Dickens +said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is +confided to me to mention a name which cannot be pronounced without +sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which England +delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed +away, as it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his +art was nature - I mean David Wilkie. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +He was one who made the cottage hearth a graceful thing - of whom it +might truly be said that he found “books in the running brooks,” +and who has left in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs +the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his genius as +an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone +from amongst us. There is his deserted studio - the empty easel +lying idly by - the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, +and there is that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which +death cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the bright +sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which +roll over him. Let us hope that she who more than all others mourns +his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness of his time, +before age or sickness had dimmed his powers - and that she may yet +associate with feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory +of Wilkie.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the <i>Britannia</i>, <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> +with a service of plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed +him as follows:]</p> +<p>Captain Hewett, - I am very proud and happy to have been selected +as the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengers +on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your acceptance +of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver +do not always, I find, keep their promises, even in Boston. I +regret that, instead of two goblets, which there should be here, there +is, at present, only one. The deficiency, however, will soon be +supplied; and, when it is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete.</p> +<p>You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; +and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a sailor’s +first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done +you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, +I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer +your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come.</p> +<p>In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope +you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory by +the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with +the pleasure of those homes and fire sides from which they once wandered, +and which, but for you, they might never have regained, so they trust +that you will sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; +and, that, when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught +is commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have; and +who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, +in all the undertakings of your life.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: FEBRUARY 1842.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. +The company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George Bancroft, +Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast of “Health, +happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens,” having been +proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with great applause, +Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, - If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone +else in the whole wide world - if I were to-night to exult in the triumph +of my dearest friend - if I stood here upon my defence, to repel any +unjust attack - to appeal as a stranger to your generosity and kindness +as the freest people on the earth - I could, putting some restraint +upon myself, stand among you as self-possessed and unmoved as I should +be alone in my own room in England. But when I have the echoes +of your cordial greeting ringing in my ears; when I see your kind faces +beaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never man had - I feel, it +is my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I have hardly fortitude +enough to thank you. If your President, instead of pouring forth +that delightful mixture of humour and pathos which you have just heard, +had been but a caustic, ill-natured man - if he had only been a dull +one - if I could only have doubted or distrusted him or you, I should +have had my wits at my fingers’ ends, and, using them, could have +held you at arm’s-length. But you have given me no such +opportunity; you take advantage of me in the tenderest point; you give +me no chance of playing at company, or holding you at a distance, but +flock about me like a host of brothers, and make this place like home. +Indeed, gentlemen, indeed, if it be natural and allowable for each of +us, on his own hearth, to express his thoughts in the most homely fashion, +and to appear in his plainest garb, I have a fair claim upon you to +let me do so to-night, for you have made my home an Aladdin’s +Palace. You fold so tenderly within your breasts that common household +lamp in which my feeble fire is all enshrined, and at which my flickering +torch is lighted up, that straight my household gods take wing, and +are transported there. And whereas it is written of that fairy +structure that it never moved without two shocks - one when it rose, +and one when it settled down - I can say of mine that, however sharp +a tug it took to pluck it from its native ground, it struck at once +an easy, and a deep and lasting root into this soil; and loved it as +its own. I can say more of it, and say with truth, that long before +it moved, or had a chance of moving, its master - perhaps from some +secret sympathy between its timbers, and a certain stately tree that +has its being hereabout, and spreads its broad branches far and wide +- dreamed by day and night, for years, of setting foot upon this shore, +and breathing this pure air. And, trust me, gentlemen, that, if +I had wandered here, unknowing and unknown, I would - if I know my own +heart - have come with all my sympathies clustering as richly about +this land and people - with all my sense of justice as keenly alive +to their high claims on every man who loves God’s image - with +all my energies as fully bent on judging for myself, and speaking out, +and telling in my sphere the truth, as I do now, when you rain down +your welcomes on my head.</p> +<p>Our President has alluded to those writings which have been my occupation +for some years past; and you have received his allusions in a manner +which assures me - if I needed any such assurance - that we are old +friends in the spirit, and have been in close communion for a long time.</p> +<p>It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I daresay +that few persons have been more interested in mine than I, and if it +be a general principle in nature that a lover’s love is blind, +and that a mother’s love is blind, I believe it may be said of +an author’s attachment to the creatures of his own imagination, +that it is a perfect model of constancy and devotion, and is the blindest +of all. But the objects and purposes I have had in view are very +plain and simple, and may be easily told. I have always had, and +always shall have, an earnest and true desire to contribute, as far +as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful cheerfulness and enjoyment. +I have always had, and always shall have, an invincible repugnance to +that mole-eyed philosophy which loves the darkness, and winks and scowls +in the light. I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags +and patches, as she does in purple and fine linen. I believe that +she and every beautiful object in external nature, claims some sympathy +in the breast of the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf of daily +bread. I believe that she goes barefoot as well as shod. +I believe that she dwells rather oftener in alleys and by-ways than +she does in courts and palaces, and that it is good, and pleasant, and +profitable to track her out, and follow her. I believe that to +lay one’s hand upon some of those rejected ones whom the world +has too long forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudest +and most thoughtless - “These creatures have the same elements +and capacities of goodness as yourselves, they are moulded in the same +form, and made of the same clay; and though ten times worse than you, +may, in having retained anything of their original nature amidst the +trials and distresses of their condition, be really ten times better;” +I believe that to do this is to pursue a worthy and not useless vocation. +Gentlemen, that you think so too, your fervent greeting sufficiently +assures me. That this feeling is alive in the Old World as well +as in the New, no man should know better than I - I, who have found +such wide and ready sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing +it, we are but treading in the steps of those great master-spirits who +have gone before, we know by reference to all the bright examples in +our literature, from Shakespeare downward.</p> +<p>There is one other point connected with the labours (if I may call +them so) that you hold in such generous esteem, to which I cannot help +adverting. I cannot help expressing the delight, the more than +happiness it was to me to find so strong an interest awakened on this +side of the water, in favour of that little heroine of mine, to whom +your president has made allusion, who died in her youth. I had +letters about that child, in England, from the dwellers in log-houses +among the morasses, and swamps, and densest forests, and deep solitudes +of the far west. Many a sturdy hand, hard with the axe and spade, +and browned by the summer’s sun, has taken up the pen, and written +to me a little history of domestic joy or sorrow, always coupled, I +am proud to say, with something of interest in that little tale, or +some comfort or happiness derived from it, and my correspondent has +always addressed me, not as a writer of books for sale, resident some +four or five thousand miles away, but as a friend to whom he might freely +impart the joys and sorrows of his own fireside. Many a mother +- I could reckon them now by dozens, not by units - has done the like, +and has told me how she lost such a child at such a time, and where +she lay buried, and how good she was, and how, in this or that respect, +she resembles Nell. I do assure you that no circumstance of my +life has given me one hundredth part of the gratification I have derived +from this source. I was wavering at the time whether or not to +wind up my Clock, <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> +and come and see this country, and this decided me. I felt as +if it were a positive duty, as if I were bound to pack up my clothes, +and come and see my friends; and even now I have such an odd sensation +in connexion with these things, that you have no chance of spoiling +me. I feel as though we were agreeing - as indeed we are, if we +substitute for fictitious characters the classes from which they are +drawn - about third parties, in whom we had a common interest. +At every new act of kindness on your part, I say to myself “That’s +for Oliver; I should not wonder if that was meant for Smike; I have +no doubt that is intended for Nell;” and so I become a much happier, +certainly, but a more sober and retiring man than ever I was before.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings me back, naturally +and of course, to you. Coming back to you, and being thereby reminded +of the pleasure we have in store in hearing the gentlemen who sit about +me, I arrive by the easiest, though not by the shortest course in the +world, at the end of what I have to say. But before I sit down, +there is one topic on which I am desirous to lay particular stress. +It has, or should have, a strong interest for us all, since to its literature +every country must look for one great means of refining and improving +its people, and one great source of national pride and honour. +You have in America great writers - great writers - who will live in +all time, and are as familiar to our lips as household words. +Deriving (as they all do in a greater or less degree, in their several +walks) their inspiration from the stupendous country that gave them +birth, they diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higher love for +it, all over the civilized world. I take leave to say, in the +presence of some of those gentleman, that I hope the time is not far +distant when they, in America, will receive of right some substantial +profit and return in England from their labours; and when we, in England, +shall receive some substantial profit and return in America for ours. +Pray do not misunderstand me. Securing to myself from day to day +the means of an honourable subsistence, I would rather have the affectionate +regard of my fellow men, than I would have heaps and mines of gold. +But the two things do not seem to me incompatible. They cannot +be, for nothing good is incompatible with justice; there must be an +international arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, +and I am confident that the time is not far distant when America will +do hers. It becomes the character of a great country; <i>firstly</i>, +because it is justice;<i> secondly</i>, because without it you never +can have, and keep, a literature of your own.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such as are not +often awakened, and can never be expressed. As I understand it +to be the pleasant custom here to finish with a toast, I would beg to +give you: AMERICA AND ENGLAND, and may they never have any division +but the Atlantic between them.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: FEBRUARY 7, 1842.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Gentlemen, - To say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which +you have drunk the toast just now so eloquently proposed to you - to +say that I give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more +than compound interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless the best +acknowledgments would be beside such genial hospitality as yours, is +nothing. To say that in this winter season, flowers have sprung +up in every footstep’s length of the path which has brought me +here; that no country ever smiled more pleasantly than yours has smiled +on me, and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer prospect +than that which lies before me now, <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a> +is nothing.</p> +<p>But it is something to be no stranger in a strange place - to feel, +sitting at a board for the first time, the ease and affection of an +old guest, and to be at once on such intimate terms with the family +as to have a homely, genuine interest in its every member - it is, I +say, something to be in this novel and happy frame of mind. And, +as it is of your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance +in urging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I should not so much +consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I should employ that universal +language of the heart, which you, and such as you, best teach, and best +can understand. Gentlemen, in that universal language - common +to you in America, and to us in England, as that younger mother-tongue, +which, by the means of, and through the happy union of our two great +countries, shall be spoken ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide +surface of the globe - I thank you.</p> +<p>I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have more than +once had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy for an author +to speak of his own books. If the task be a difficult one at any +time, its difficulty, certainly, is not diminished when a frequent recurrence +to the same theme has left one nothing new to say. Still, I feel +that, in a company like this, and especially after what has been said +by the President, that I ought not to pass lightly over those labours +of love, which, if they had no other merit, have been the happy means +of bringing us together.</p> +<p>It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an author’s +personal character from his writings. It may be that you cannot. +I think it very likely, for many reasons, that you cannot. But, +at least, a reader will rise from the perusal of a book with some defined +and tangible idea of the writer’s moral creed and broad purposes, +if he has any at all; and it is probable enough that he may like to +have this idea confirmed from the author’s lips, or dissipated +by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed - which is a very +wide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects and parties - is +very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wish to diffuse faith +in the existence - yes, of beautiful things, even in those conditions +of society, which are so degenerate, degraded, and forlorn, that, at +first sight, it would seem as though they could not be described but +by a strange and terrible reversal of the words of Scripture, “God +said, Let there be light, and there was none.” I take it +that we are born, and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and energies, +in trust for the many, and not for the few. That we cannot hold +in too strong a light of disgust and contempt, before the view of others, +all meanness, falsehood, cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and +kind. Above all, that nothing is high, because it is in a high +place; and that nothing is low, because it is in a low one. This +is the lesson taught us in the great book of nature. This is the +lesson which may be read, alike in the bright track of the stars, and +in the dusty course of the poorest thing that drags its tiny length +upon the ground. This is the lesson ever uppermost in the thoughts +of that inspired man, who tells us that there are</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks,<br />Sermons +in stones, and good in everything.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no loss +to refer your favour and your generous hospitality back to the right +source. While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of being +what it is, this were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should care very +little for your smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the other, that +if, instead of being what I am, I were the greatest genius that ever +trod the earth, and had diverted myself for the oppression and degradation +of mankind, you would despise and reject me. I hope you will, +whenever, through such means, I give you the opportunity. Trust +me, that, whenever you give me the like occasion, I will return the +compliment with interest.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of confidence +you have engendered between us, and as I have made a kind of compact +with myself that I never will, while I remain in America, omit an opportunity +of referring to a topic in which I and all others of my class on both +sides of the water are equally interested - equally interested, there +is no difference between us, I would beg leave to whisper in your ear +two words: <i>International Copyright</i>. I use them in no sordid +sense, believe me, and those who know me best, best know that. +For myself, I would rather that my children, coming after me, trudged +in the mud, and knew by the general feeling of society that their father +was beloved, and had been of some use, than I would have them ride in +their carriages, and know by their banker’s books that he was +rich. But I do not see, I confess, why one should be obliged to +make the choice, or why fame, besides playing that delightful <i>reveil</i> +for which she is so justly celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet +a few notes of a different kind from those with which she has hitherto +contented herself.</p> +<p>It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose +words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, if there had +existed any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk beneath the +mighty pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures +of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about you in your summer walks, +and gather round your winter evening hearths.</p> +<p>As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that +touching scene in the great man’s life, when he lay upon his couch, +surrounded by his family, and listened, for the last time, to the rippling +of the river he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured +him to myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and body by his +honourable struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of his own +imagination - Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb Balderstone, +Dominie Sampson - all the familiar throng - with cavaliers, and Puritans, +and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading +away in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing +the world, and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow, that, from +all those lands into which they had carried gladness, instruction, and +delight for millions, they brought him not one friendly hand to help +to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him from +that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house and +hut of which his own books were read in his own tongue, one grateful +dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every man +who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, +would but remember this, and bring the recollection home!</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that. +You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already +one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have given +those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollecting +it with pride and interest. Heaven knows that, although I should +grow ever so gray, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in +my life. But I am glad to think that from this time you are inseparably +connected with every recurrence of this day; and, that on its periodical +return, I shall always, in imagination, have the unfading pleasure of +entertaining you as my guests, in return for the gratification you have +afforded me to-night.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At a dinner presided over by Washington Irving, when nearly eight +hundred of the most distinguished citizens of New York were present, +“Charles Dickens, the Literary Guest of the Nation,” having +been “proferred as a sentiment” by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens +rose, and spoke as follows:]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, - I don’t know how to thank you - I really don’t +know how. You would naturally suppose that my former experience +would have given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way +would have been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the +reverse, and I have completely baulked the ancient proverb that “a +rolling stone gathers no moss;” and in my progress to this city +I have collected such a weight of obligations and acknowledgment - I +have picked up such an enormous mass of fresh moss at every point, and +was so struck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that I thought +I could never by any possibility grow any bigger. I have made, +continually, new accumulations to such an extent that I am compelled +to stand still, and can roll no more!</p> +<p>Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stories, +or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their own accord - as I do +not - it presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent +holds good in this case. When I have remembered the short time +I have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and the +poor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of, and +forming an acquaintance with it, I have felt it almost a duty to decline +the honours you so generously heap upon me, and pass more quietly among +you. For Argus himself, though he had but one mouth for his hundred +eyes, would have found the reception of a public entertainment once +a-week too much for his greatest activity; and, as I would lose no scrap +of the rich instruction and the delightful knowledge which meet me on +every hand, (and already I have gleaned a great deal from your hospitals +and common jails), - I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my +way rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with America, not at +parties but at home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I say to-night, with +a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, +and shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your affectionate and +your noble greeting, which it is utterly impossible to convey in words. +No European sky without, and no cheerful home or well-warmed room within +shall ever shut out this land from my vision. I shall often hear +your words of welcome in my quiet room, and oftenest when most quiet; +and shall see your faces in the blazing fire. If I should live +to grow old, the scenes of this and other evenings will shine as brightly +to my dull eyes fifty years hence as now; and the honours you bestow +upon me shall be well remembered and paid back in my undying love, and +honest endeavours for the good of my race.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this first person singular, +and then I shall close. I came here in an open, honest, and confiding +spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt a deep sympathy in your +land; had I felt otherwise, I should have kept away. As I came +here, and am here, without the least admixture of one-hundredth part +of one grain of base alloy, without one feeling of unworthy reference +to self in any respect, I claim, in regard to the past, for the last +time, my right in reason, in truth, and in justice, to approach, as +I have done on two former occasions, a question of literary interest. +I claim that justice be done; and I prefer this claim as one who has +a right to speak and be heard. I have only to add that I shall +be as true to you as you have been to me. I recognize in your +enthusiastic approval of the creatures of my fancy, your enlightened +care for the happiness of the many, your tender regard for the afflicted, +your sympathy for the downcast, your plans for correcting and improving +the bad, and for encouraging the good; and to advance these great objects +shall be, to the end of my life, my earnest endeavour, to the extent +of my humble ability. Having said thus much with reference to +myself, I shall have the pleasure of saying a few words with reference +to somebody else.</p> +<p>There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of +my books - I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop - wrote to +me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that +if I had written the book under every circumstance of disappointment, +of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should +have found in the receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. +I answered him, <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> +and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands autographically, as +if no ocean rolled between us. I came here to this city eager +to see him, and [<i>laying his hand it upon Irving’s shoulder</i>] +here he sits! I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am +to see him here to-night in this capacity.</p> +<p>Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don’t go upstairs +to bed two nights out of the seven - as a very creditable witness near +at hand can testify - I say I do not go to bed two nights out of the +seven without taking Washington Irving under my arm; and, when I don’t +take him, I take his own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington +Irving! Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day when +I came up by the Hog’s Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate, and all +these places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited Shakespeare’s +birthplace, and went beneath the roof where he first saw light, whose +name but <i>his</i> was pointed out to me upon the wall? Washington +Irving - Diedrich Knickerbocker - Geoffrey Crayon - why, where can you +go that they have not been there before? Is there an English farm +- is there an English stream, an English city, or an English country-seat, +where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? +Has it no ancient shades or quiet streets?</p> +<p>In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an +old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar’s Head, a little +man with a red nose, and an oilskin hat. When I came away he was +sitting there still! - not a man <i>like</i> him, but the same man - +with the nose of immortal redness and the hat of an undying glaze! +Crayon, while there, was on terms of intimacy with a certain radical +fellow, who used to go about, with a hatful of newspapers, wofully out +at elbows, and with a coat of great antiquity. Why, gentlemen, +I know that man - Tibbles the elder, and he has not changed a hair; +and, when I came away, he charged me to give his best respects to Washington +Irving!</p> +<p>Leaving the town and the rustic life of England - forgetting this +man, if we can - putting out of mind the country church-yard and the +broken heart - let us cross the water again, and ask who has associated +himself most closely with the Italian peasantry and the bandits of the +Pyrenees? When the traveller enters his little chamber beyond +the Alps - listening to the dim echoes of the long passages and spacious +corridors - damp, and gloomy, and cold - as he hears the tempest beating +with fury against his window, and gazes at the curtains, dark, and heavy, +and covered with mould - and when all the ghost-stories that ever were +told come up before him - amid all his thick-coming fancies, whom does +he think of? Washington Irving.</p> +<p>Go farther still: go to the Moorish Mountains, sparkling full in +the moonlight - go among the water-carriers and the village gossips, +living still as in days of old - and who has travelled among them before +you, and peopled the Alhambra and made eloquent its shadows? Who +awakes there a voice from every hill and in every cavern, and bids legends, +which for centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or watched unwinkingly, +start up and pass before you in all their life and glory?</p> +<p>But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbus upon his gallant +ship, traversed with him the dark and mighty ocean, leaped upon the +land and planted there the flag of Spain, but this same man, now sitting +by my side? And being here at home again, who is a more fit companion +for money-diggers? and what pen but his has made Rip Van Winkle, playing +at nine-pins on that thundering afternoon, as much part and parcel of +the Catskill Mountains as any tree or crag that they can boast?</p> +<p>But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and which I am apt +to pursue; and lest I should be tempted now to talk too long about them, +I will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most appropriate, I am +sure, in the presence of such writers as Bryant, Halleck, and - but +I suppose I must not mention the ladies here -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>THE LITERATURE OF AMERICA:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>She well knows how to do honour to her own literature and to that +of other lands, when she chooses Washington Irving for her representative +in the country of Cervantes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[This address was delivered at a soirée of the members of +the Manchester, Athenaeum, at which Mr. Dickens presided. Among +the other speakers on the occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - I am sure I need scarcely tell you that I +am very proud and happy; and that I take it as a great distinction to +be asked to come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when, even +with the brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see before me, I +can hail it as the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance of all, +that we assemble together here, even here, upon neutral ground, where +we have no more knowledge of party difficulties, or public animosities +between side and side, or between man and man, than if we were a public +meeting in the commonwealth of Utopia.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds, +this assembly is not less interesting to me, believe me - although, +personally, almost a stranger here - than it is interesting to you; +and I take it, that it is not of greater importance to all of us than +it is to every man who has learned to know that he has an interest in +the moral and social elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, +happiness, and improvement, of the community at large. Not even +those who saw the first foundation of your Athenaeum laid, and watched +its progress, as I know they did, almost as tenderly as if it were the +progress of a living creature, until it reared its beautiful front, +an honour to the town - not even they, nor even you who, within its +walls, have tasted its usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater +reason, I am persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that +it may thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who +- whether consciously or unconsciously, matters not - have, in the principle +of its success and bright example, a deep and personal concern.</p> +<p>It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town, +this little world of labour, that she should stand out foremost in the +foremost rank in such a cause. It well becomes her, that, among +her numerous and noble public institutions, she should have a splendid +temple sacred to the education and improvement of a large class of those +who, in their various useful stations, assist in the production of our +wealth, and in rendering her name famous through the world. I +think it is grand to know, that, while her factories re-echo with the +clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl and rattle of machinery, +the immortal mechanism of God’s own hand, the mind, is not forgotten +in the din and uproar, but is lodged and tended in a palace of its own. +That it is a structure deeply fixed and rooted in the public spirit +of this place, and built to last, I have no more doubt, judging from +the spectacle I see before me, and from what I know of its brief history, +than I have of the reality of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars +that spring up about us.</p> +<p>You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the Athenaeum +was projected at a time when commerce was in a vigorous and flourishing +condition, and when those classes of society to which it particularly +addresses itself were fully employed, and in the receipt of regular +incomes. A season of depression almost without a parallel ensued, +and large numbers of young men employed in warehouses and offices suddenly +found their occupation gone, and themselves reduced to very straitened +and penurious circumstances. This altered state of things led, +as I am told, to the compulsory withdrawal of many of the members, to +a proportionate decrease in the expected funds, and to the incurrence +of a debt of £3,000. By the very great zeal and energy of +all concerned, and by the liberality of those to whom they applied for +help, that debt is now in rapid course of being discharged. A +little more of the same indefatigable exertion on the one hand, and +a little more of the same community of feeling upon the other, and there +will be no such thing; the figures will be blotted out for good and +all, and, from that time, the Athenaeum may be said to belong to you, +and to your heirs for ever.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most thriving, +and in its least flourishing condition - here, with its cheerful rooms, +its pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library of 6,000 +volumes, its classes for the study of the foreign languages, elocution, +music; its opportunities of discussion and debate, of healthful bodily +exercise, and, though last not least - for by this I set great store, +as a very novel and excellent provision - its opportunities of blameless, +rational enjoyment, here it is, open to every youth and man in this +great town, accessible to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all +these benefits, and the inestimable ends to which they lead, can set +aside one sixpence weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the +subscription, and upon the fact that the number of members has considerably +more than doubled within the last twelve months, as strides in the path +of the very best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the history +of mankind.</p> +<p>I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a prospect +before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake up the ashes +of the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be urged by men of +all parties against institutions such as this, whose interests we are +met to promote; but their philosophy was always to be summed up in the +unmeaning application of one short sentence. How often have we +heard from a large class of men wise in their generation, who would +really seem to be born and bred for no other purpose than to pass into +currency counterfeit and mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the +sole pursuit of some other criminals to utter base coin - how often +have we heard from them, as an all-convincing argument, that “a +little learning is a dangerous thing?” Why, a little hanging +was considered a very dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, +with this difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous, +we had a great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, +we were to have none at all. Why, when I hear such cruel absurdities +gravely reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt whether the parrots +of society are not more pernicious to its interests than its birds of +prey. I should be glad to hear such people’s estimate of +the comparative danger of “a little learning” and a vast +amount of ignorance; I should be glad to know which they consider the +most prolific parent of misery and crime. Descending a little +lower in the social scale, I should be glad to assist them in their +calculations, by carrying them into certain gaols and nightly refuges +I know of, where my own heart dies within me, when I see thousands of +immortal creatures condemned, without alternative or choice, to tread, +not what our great poet calls the “primrose path” to the +everlasting bonfire, but one of jaded flints and stones, laid down by +brutal ignorance, and held together, like the solid rocks, by years +of this most wicked axiom.</p> +<p>Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright in deed +and thought, whether they would rather have ignorant or enlightened +persons in their own employment? Why, we have had their answer +in this building; we have it in this company; we have it emphatically +given in the munificent generosity of your own merchants of Manchester, +of all sects and kinds, when this establishment was first proposed. +But are the advantages derivable by the people from institutions such +as this, only of a negative character? If a little learning be +an innocent thing, has it no distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence +upon the mind? The old doggerel rhyme, so often written in the +beginning of books, says that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“When house and lands are gone and spent,<br />Then learning +is most excellent;”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, and say that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Though house and lands be never got,<br />Learning can give +what they can<i>not</i>.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned by +every man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a place as +the Athenaeum, is self-respect - an inward dignity of character, which, +once acquired and righteously maintained, nothing - no, not the hardest +drudgery, nor the direst poverty - can vanquish. Though he should +find it hard for a season even to keep the wolf - hunger - from his +door, let him but once have chased the dragon - ignorance - from his +hearth, and self-respect and hope are left him. You could no more +deprive him of those sustaining qualities by loss or destruction of +his worldly goods, than you could, by plucking out his eyes, take from +him an internal consciousness of the bright glory of the sun.</p> +<p>The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his sphere +of hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a place as the +Athenaeum, acquires for himself that property of soul which has in all +times upheld struggling men of every degree, but self-made men especially +and always. He secures to himself that faithful companion which, +while it has ever lent the light of its countenance to men of rank and +eminence who have deserved it, has ever shed its brightest consolations +on men of low estate and almost hopeless means. It took its patient +seat beside Sir Walter Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; it +laid its head upon the block with More; but it did not disdain to watch +the stars with Ferguson, the shepherd’s boy; it walked the streets +in mean attire with Crabbe; it was a poor barber here in Lancashire +with Arkwright; it was a tallow-chandler’s son with Franklin; +it worked at shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the +plough with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, it +whispers courage even at this day in ears I could name in Sheffield +and in Manchester.</p> +<p>The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place learns, +the better, gentler, kinder man he must become. When he knows +how much great minds have suffered for the truth in every age and time, +and to what dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will become +more tolerant of other men’s belief in all matters, and will incline +more leniently to their sentiments when they chance to differ from his +own. Understanding that the relations between himself and his +employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility, he will discharge +his part of the implied contract cheerfully, satisfactorily, and honourably; +for the history of every useful life warns him to shape his course in +that direction.</p> +<p>The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish kind, +but extend themselves to his home, and to those whom it contains. +Something of what he hears or reads within such walls can scarcely fail +to become at times a topic of discourse by his own fireside, nor can +it ever fail to lead to larger sympathies with man, and to a higher +veneration for the great Creator of all the wonders of this universe. +It appears to his home and his homely feeling in other ways; for at +certain times he carries there his wife and daughter, or his sister, +or, possibly, some bright-eyed acquaintance of a more tender description. +Judging from what I see before me, I think it is very likely; I am sure +I would if I could. He takes her there to enjoy a pleasant evening, +to be gay and happy. Sometimes it may possibly happen that he +dates his tenderness from the Athenaeum. I think that is a very +excellent thing, too, and not the least among the advantages of the +institution. In any case, I am sure the number of bright eyes +and beaming faces which grace this meeting to-night by their presence, +will never be among the least of its excellences in my recollection.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, the pleasing +task your favour has devolved upon me, or the strong and inspiring confirmation +I have to-night, of all the hopes and reliances I have ever placed upon +institutions of this nature. In the latter point of view - in +their bearing upon this latter point - I regard them as of great importance, +deeming that the more intelligent and reflective society in the mass +becomes, and the more readers there are, the more distinctly writers +of all kinds will be able to throw themselves upon the truthful feeling +of the people and the more honoured and the more useful literature must +be. At the same time, I must confess that, if there had been an +Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some leaves +of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which was very cheaply +bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably haggled for by the groat, +would be blank leaves, and posterity might probably have lacked the +information that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. +But it is upon a much better and wider scale, let me say it once again +- it is in the effect of such institutions upon the great social system, +and the peace and happiness of mankind, that I delight to contemplate +them; and, in my heart, I am quite certain that long after your institution, +and others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, the noble harvest +of the seed sown in them will shine out brightly in the wisdom, the +mercy, and the forbearance of another race.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following address was delivered at a soirée of the Liverpool +Mechanics’ Institution, at which Mr. Dickens presided.]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - It was rather hard of you to take away my +breath before I spoke a word; but I would not thank you, even if I could, +for the favour which has set me in this place, or for the generous kindness +which has greeted me so warmly, - because my first strong impulse still +would be, although I had that power, to lose sight of all personal considerations +in the high intent and meaning of this numerous assemblage, in the contemplation +of the noble objects to which this building is devoted, of its brilliant +and inspiring history, of that rough, upward track, so bravely trodden, +which it leaves behind, and that bright path of steadily-increasing +usefulness which lies stretched out before it. My first strong +impulse still would be to exchange congratulations with you, as the +members of one united family, on the thriving vigour of this strongest +child of a strong race. My first strong impulse still would be, +though everybody here had twice as many hundreds of hands as there are +hundreds of persons present, to shake them in the spirit, everyone, +always, allow me to say, excepting those hands (and there are a few +such here), which, with the constitutional infirmity of human nature, +I would rather salute in some more tender fashion.</p> +<p>When I first had the honour of communicating with your Committee +with reference to this celebration, I had some selfish hopes that the +visit proposed to me might turn out to be one of congratulation, or, +at least, of solicitous inquiry; for they who receive a visitor in any +season of distress are easily touched and moved by what he says, and +I entertained some confident expectation of making a mighty strong impression +on you. But, when I came to look over the printed documents which +were forwarded to me at the same time, and with which you are all tolerably +familiar, these anticipations very speedily vanished, and left me bereft +of all consolation, but the triumphant feeling to which I have referred. +For what do I find, on looking over those brief chronicles of this swift +conquest over ignorance and prejudice, in which no blood has been poured +out, and no treaty signed but that one sacred compact which recognises +the just right of every man, whatever his belief, or however humble +his degree, to aspire, and to have some means of aspiring, to be a better +and a wiser man? I find that, in 1825, certain misguided and turbulent +persons proposed to erect in Liverpool an unpopular, dangerous, irreligious, +and revolutionary establishment, called a Mechanics’ Institution; +that, in 1835, Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on pretty comfortably +in the meantime, in spite of it, the first stone of a new and spacious +edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; that, it was afterwards, +at different periods, considerably enlarged; that, in 1844, conspicuous +amongst the public beauties of a beautiful town, here it stands triumphant, +its enemies lived down, its former students attesting, in their various +useful callings and pursuits, the sound, practical information it afforded +them; its members numbering considerably more than 3,000, and setting +in rapidly for 6,000 at least; its library comprehending 11,000 volumes, +and daily sending forth its hundreds of books into private homes; its +staff of masters and officers, amounting to half-a-hundred in themselves; +its schools, conveying every sort of instruction, high and low, adapted +to the labour, means, exigencies, and convenience of nearly every class +and grade of persons. I was here this morning, and in its spacious +halls I found stores of the wonders worked by nature in the air, in +the forest, in the cavern, and in the sea - stores of the surpassing +engines devised by science for the better knowledge of other worlds, +and the greater happiness of this - stores of those gentler works of +art, which, though achieved in perishable stone, by yet more perishable +hands of dust, are in their influence immortal. With such means +at their command, so well-directed, so cheaply shared, and so extensively +diffused, well may your Committee say, as they have done in one of their +Reports, that the success of this establishment has far exceeded their +most sanguine expectations.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whose words they +quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the wonderful effects of little +things and small beginnings, that the influence of the loadstone was +first discovered in particles of iron, and not in iron bars, so they +may lay it to their hearts, that when they combined together to form +the institution which has risen to this majestic height, they issued +on a field of enterprise, the glorious end of which they cannot even +now discern. Every man who has felt the advantages of, or has +received improvement in this place, carries its benefits into the society +in which he moves, and puts them out at compound interest; and what +the blessed sum may be at last, no man can tell. Ladies and gentlemen, +with that Christian prelate whose name appears on your list of honorary +Members; that good and liberal man who once addressed you within these +walls, in a spirit worthy of his calling, and of his High Master - I +look forward from this place, as from a tower, to the time when high +and low, and rich and poor, shall mutually assist, improve, and educate +each other.</p> +<p>I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, with its +3,200 members, and at least 3,200 arguments in every one, to enter on +any advocacy of the principle of Mechanics’ Institutions, or to +discuss the subject with those who do or ever did object to them. +I should as soon think of arguing the point with those untutored savages +whose mode of life you last year had the opportunity of witnessing; +indeed, I am strongly inclined to believe them by far the more rational +class of the two. Moreover, if the institution itself be not a +sufficient answer to all such objections, then there is no such thing +in fact or reason, human or divine. Neither will I venture to +enter into those details of the management of this place which struck +me most on the perusal of its papers; but I cannot help saying how much +impressed and gratified I was, as everybody must be who comes to their +perusal for the first time, by the extraordinary munificence with which +this institution has been endowed by certain gentlemen.</p> +<p>Amongst the peculiar features of management which made the greatest +impression on me, I may observe that that regulation which empowers +fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, to introduce their +sons who are minors; and masters, on payment of the astoundingly small +sum of five shillings annually, in like manner their apprentices, is +not the least valuable of its privileges; and, certainly not the one +least valuable to society. And, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot +say to you what pleasure I derived from the perusal of an apparently +excellent report in your local papers of a meeting held here some short +time since, in aid of the formation of a girls’ school in connexion +with this institution. This is a new and striking chapter in the +history of these institutions; it does equal credit to the gallantry +and policy of this, and disposes one to say of it with a slight parody +on the words of Burns, that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Its ’prentice han’ it tried on man,<br />And then +it <i>taught</i> the lasses, O.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessons are oftenest +heeded in after life, should be well taught themselves, is a proposition +few reasonable men will gainsay; and, certainly, to breed up good husbands +on the one hand, and good wives on the other, does appear as reasonable +and straightforward a plan as could well be devised for the improvement +of the next generation.</p> +<p>This, and what I see before me, naturally brings me to our fairer +members, in respect of whom I have no doubt you will agree with me, +that they ought to be admitted to the widest possible extent, and on +the lowest possible terms; and, ladies, let me venture to say to you, +that you never did a wiser thing in all your lives than when you turned +your favourable regard on such an establishment as this - for wherever +the light of knowledge is diffused, wherever the humanizing influence +of the arts and sciences extends itself, wherever there is the clearest +perception of what is beautiful, and good, and most redeeming, amid +all the faults and vices of mankind, there your character, your virtues, +your graces, your better nature, will be the best appreciated, and there +the truest homage will be proudly paid to you. You show best, +trust me, in the clearest light; and every ray that falls upon you at +your own firesides, from any book or thought communicated within these +walls, will raise you nearer to the angels in the eyes you care for +most.</p> +<p>I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen, between +you and the pleasure we all anticipate in hearing other gentlemen, and +in enjoying those social pleasures with which it is a main part of the +wisdom of this society to adorn and relieve its graver pursuits. +We all feel, I am sure, being here, that we are truly interested in +the cause of human improvement and rational education, and that we pledge +ourselves, everyone as far as in him lies, to extend the knowledge of +the benefits afforded in this place, and to bear honest witness in its +favour. To those who yet remain without its walls, but have the +means of purchasing its advantages, we make appeal, and in a friendly +and forbearing spirit say, “Come in, and be convinced -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Who enters here, leaves <i>doubt</i> behind.’”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and are superior +to its advantages, so much the more should you make one in sympathy +with those who are below you. Beneath this roof we breed the men +who, in the time to come, must be found working for good or evil, in +every quarter of society. If mutual respect and forbearance among +various classes be not found here, where so many men are trained up +in so many grades, to enter on so many roads of life, dating their entry +from one common starting-point, as they are all approaching, by various +paths, one common end, where else can that great lesson be imbibed? +Differences of wealth, of rank, of intellect, we know there must be, +and we respect them; but we would give to all the means of taking out +one patent of nobility, and we define it, in the words of a great living +poet, who is one of us, and who uses his great gifts, as he holds them +in trust, for the general welfare -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Howe’er it be, it seems to me<br />’Tis only noble +to be good:<br />True hearts are more than coronets,<br />And simple +faith than Norman blood.” <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was delivered at a Conversazione, in aid of +the funds of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution, at which Mr Dickens +presided.]</p> +<p>You will think it very unwise, or very self-denying in me, in such +an assembly, in such a splendid scene, and after such a welcome, to +congratulate myself on having nothing new to say to you: but I do so, +notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I had the +honour of attending at Manchester, shortly before Christmas, and at +Liverpool, only the night before last, for a purpose similar to that +which brings you together this evening; and looking down a short perspective +of similar engagements, I feel gratification at the thought that I shall +very soon have nothing at all to say; in which case, I shall be content +to stake my reputation, like the Spectator of Addison, and that other +great periodical speaker, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on my +powers of listening.</p> +<p>This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with, are not +the only reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial, and peculiar interest +in this night’s proceedings. The Polytechnic Institution +of Birmingham is in its infancy - struggling into life under all those +adverse and disadvantageous circumstances which, to a greater or less +extent, naturally beset all infancy; but I would much rather connect +myself with it now, however humble, in its days of difficulty and of +danger, than look back on its origin when it may have become strong, +and rich, and powerful. I should prefer an intimate association +with it now, in its early days and apparent struggles, to becoming its +advocate and acquaintance, its fair-weather friend, in its high and +palmy days. I would rather be able to say I knew it in its swaddling-clothes, +than in maturer age. Its two elder brothers have grown old and +died: their chests were weak - about their cradles nurses shook their +heads, and gossips groaned; but the present institution shot up, amidst +the ruin of those which have fallen, with an indomitable constitution, +with vigorous and with steady pulse; temperate, wise, and of good repute; +and by perseverance it has become a very giant. Birmingham is, +in my mind and in the minds of most men, associated with many giants; +and I no more believe that this young institution will turn out sickly, +dwarfish, or of stunted growth, than I do that when the glass-slipper +of my chairmanship shall fall off, and the clock strike twelve to-night, +this hall will be turned into a pumpkin. I found that strong belief +upon the splendid array of grace and beauty by which I am surrounded, +and which, if it only had one-hundredth part of the effect upon others +it has upon me, could do anything it pleased with anything and anybody. +I found my strong conviction, in the second place, upon the public spirit +of the town of Birmingham - upon the name and fame of its capitalists +and working men; upon the greatness and importance of its merchants +and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are constantly in progress; +upon the skill and intelligence of its artisans, which are daily developed; +and the increasing knowledge of all portions of the community. +All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that your institution will +advance - that it will and must progress, and that you will not be content +with lingering leagues behind.</p> +<p>I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with +the object of this assembly; and it is, that the resolutions about to +be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian or +class nature; that they do not confine themselves to any one single +institution, but assert the great and omnipotent principles of comprehensive +education everywhere and under every circumstance. I beg leave +to say that I concur, heart and hand, in those principles, and will +do all in my power for their advancement; for I hold, in accordance +with the imperfect knowledge which I possess, that it is impossible +for any fabric of society to go on day after day, and year after year, +from father to son, and from grandfather to grandson, punishing men +for not engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice of crime, +without showing them what virtue is, and where it best can be found +- in justice, religion, and truth. The only reason that can possibly +be adduced against it is one founded on fiction - namely, the case where +an obdurate old geni, in the “Arabian Nights,” was bound +upon taking the life of a merchant, because he had struck out the eye +of his invisible son. I recollect, likewise, a tale in the same +book of charming fancies, which I consider not inappropriate: it is +a case where a powerful spirit has been imprisoned at the bottom of +the sea, in a casket with a leaden cover, and the seal of Solomon upon +it; there he had lain neglected for many centuries, and during that +period had made many different vows: at first, that he would reward +magnificently those who should release him; and at last, that he would +destroy them. Now, there is a spirit of great power - the Spirit +of Ignorance - which is shut up in a vessel of leaden composition, and +sealed with the seal of many, many Solomons, and which is effectually +in the same position: release it in time, and it will bless, restore, +and reanimate society; but let it lie under the rolling waves of years, +and its blind revenge is sure to lead to certain destruction. +That there are classes which, if rightly treated, constitute strength, +and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it impossible to deny - by these classes +I mean industrious, intelligent, and honourably independent men, in +whom the higher classes of Birmingham are especially interested, and +bound to afford them the means of instruction and improvement, and to +ameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be it from me +(and I wish to be most particularly understood) to attempt to depreciate +the excellent Church Instruction Societies, or the worthy, sincere, +and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen by whom they are usually +conducted; on the contrary, I believe that they have done, and are doing, +much good, and are deserving of high praise; but I hope that, without +offence, in a community such as Birmingham, there are other objects +not unworthy in the sight of heaven, and objects of recognised utility +which are worthy of support - principles which are practised in word +and deed in Polytechnic Institutions - principles for the diffusion +of which honest men of all degrees and of every creed might associate +together, on an independent footing and on neutral ground, and at a +small expense, for the better understanding and the greater consideration +of each other, and for the better cultivation of the happiness of all: +for it surely cannot be allowed that those who labour day by day, surrounded +by machinery, shall be permitted to degenerate into machines themselves, +but, on the contrary, they should assert their common origin from their +Creator, at the hands of those who are responsible and thinking men. +There is, indeed, no difference in the main with respect to the dangers +of ignorance and the advantages of knowledge between those who hold +different opinions - for it is to be observed, that those who are most +distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to +exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was pleasantly +illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage +with me there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in alluding +to him, for I know that he is not in the room, having got out far short +of Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully as to the ruinous +effects and rapid spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the +virtues of the slow-going old stage coaches. Now I, entertaining +some little lingering kindness for the road, made shift to express my +concurrence with the old gentleman’s opinion, without any great +compromise of principle. Well, we got on tolerably comfortably +together, and when the engine, with a frightful screech, dived into +some dark abyss, like some strange aquatic monster, the old gentleman +said it would never do, and I agreed with him. When it parted +from each successive station, with a shock and a shriek as if it had +had a double-tooth drawn, the old gentleman shook his head, and I shook +mine. When he burst forth against such new-fangled notions, and +said no good could come of them, I did not contest the point. +But I found that when the speed of the engine was abated, or there was +a prolonged stay at any station, up the old gentleman was at arms, and +his watch was instantly out of his pocket, denouncing the slowness of +our progress. Now I could not help comparing this old gentleman +to that ingenious class of persons who are in the constant habit of +declaiming against the vices and crimes of society, and at the same +time are the first and foremost to assert that vice and crime have not +their common origin in ignorance and discontent.</p> +<p>The good work, however, in spite of all political and party differences, +has been well begun; we are all interested in it; it is advancing, and +cannot be stopped by any opposition, although it may be retarded in +this place or in that, by the indifference of the middle classes, with +whom its successful progress chiefly rests. Of this success I +cannot entertain a doubt; for whenever the working classes have enjoyed +an opportunity of effectually rebutting accusations which falsehood +or thoughtlessness have brought against them, they always avail themselves +of it, and show themselves in their true characters; and it was this +which made the damage done to a single picture in the National Gallery +of London, by some poor lunatic or cripple, a mere matter of newspaper +notoriety and wonder for some few days. This, then, establishes +a fact evident to the meanest comprehension - that any given number +of thousands of individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this country, +can pass through the national galleries or museums in seasons of holiday-making, +without damaging, in the slightest degree, those choice and valuable +collections. I do not myself believe that the working classes +ever were the wanton or mischievous persons they were so often and so +long represented to be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some +men take it into their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact, without +being particular about the premises; and that the idle and the prejudiced, +not wishing to have the trouble of forming opinions for themselves, +take it for granted - until the people have an opportunity of disproving +the stigma and vindicating themselves before the world.</p> +<p>Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurred respecting +an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with respect to which a legend +existed that the sculptor hanged himself, because he had neglected to +put a girth to the horse. This story was currently believed for +many years, until it was inspected for altogether a different purpose, +and it was found to have had a girth all the time.</p> +<p>But surely if, as is stated, the people are ill-disposed and mischievous, +that is the best reason that can be offered for teaching them better; +and if they are not, surely that is a reason for giving them every opportunity +of vindicating their injured reputation; and no better opportunity could +possibly be afforded than that of associating together voluntarily for +such high purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment +of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any case - nay, +in every case - if we would reward honesty, if we would hold out encouragement +to good, if we would eradicate that which is evil or correct that which +is bad, education - comprehensive, liberal education - is the one thing +needful, and the only effective end. If I might apply to my purpose, +and turn into plain prose some words of Hamlet - not with reference +to any government or party (for party being, for the most part, an irrational +sort of thing, has no connexion with the object we have in view) - if +I might apply those words to education as Hamlet applied them to the +skull of Yorick, I would say - “Now hie thee to the council-chamber, +and tell them, though they lay it on in sounding thoughts and learned +words an inch thick, to this complexion they must come at last.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In answer to a vote of thanks, <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a> +Mr. Dickens said, at the close of the meeting -</p> +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even - for every effect +which I may have made upon you, the compliment has been amply returned +to me; but at the same time I am as little disposed to say to you, ‘go +and sin no more,’ as I am to promise for myself that ‘I +will never do so again.’ So long as I can make you laugh +and cry, I will; and you will readily believe me, when I tell you, you +cannot do too much on your parts to show that we are still cordial and +loving friends. To you, ladies of the Institution, I am deeply +and especially indebted. I sometimes [<i>pointing to the word</i> +‘<i>Boz</i>’ <i>in front of the great gallery</i>] think +there is some small quantity of magic in that very short name, and that +it must consist in its containing as many letters as the three graces, +and they, every one of them, being of your fair sisterhood.</p> +<p>A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for +an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man, sometimes bowstringing +his dependants indiscriminately in his moments of anger, but burying +them in great splendour in his moments of penitence, that whenever intelligence +was brought him of a new plot or turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry +was, ‘Who is she?’ meaning that a woman was at the bottom. +Now, in my small way, I differ from that potentate; for when there is +any good to be attained, the services of any ministering angel required, +my first inquiry is, ‘Where is she?’ and the answer invariably +is, ‘Here.’ Proud and happy am I indeed to thank you +for your generosity -</p> +<p>‘A thousand times, good night;<br />A thousand times the worse +to want your light.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: GARDENERS AND GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners’ Benevolent +Institution was held on the above date at the London Tavern. The +company numbered more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the +occasion, and an admirable effect was produced by a profuse display +of natural flowers upon the tables and in the decoration of the room. +The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in proposing the toast +of the evening, spoke as follows:-]</p> +<p>For three times three years the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution +has been stimulated and encouraged by meetings such as this, and by +three times three cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous career. +[<i>The</i> <i>cheers were warmly given</i>.]</p> +<p>Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel for +the plaintiff with nobody on the other side; but even if I had been +placed in that position ninety times nine, it would still be my duty +to state a few facts from the very short brief with which I have been +provided.</p> +<p>This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During the first +five years of its existence, it was not particularly robust, and seemed +to have been placed in rather a shaded position, receiving somewhat +more than its needful allowance of cold water. In 1843 it was +removed into a more favourable position, and grafted on a nobler stock, +and it has now borne fruit, and become such a vigorous tree that at +present thirty-five old people daily sit within the shelter of its branches, +and all the pensioners upon the list have been veritable gardeners, +or the wives of gardeners. It is managed by gardeners, and it +has upon its books the excellent rule that any gardener who has subscribed +to it for fifteen years, and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, +be placed upon the pensioners’ list without election, without +canvass, without solicitation, and as his independent right. I +lay very great stress upon that honourable characteristic of the charity, +because the main principle of any such institution should be to help +those who help themselves. That the Society’s pensioners +do not become such so long as they are able to support themselves, is +evinced by the significant fact that the average age of those now upon +the list is seventy-seven; that they are not wasteful is proved by the +fact that the whole sum expended on their relief is but £500 a-year; +that the Institution does not restrict itself to any narrow confines, +is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners come from all parts +of England, whilst all the expenses are paid from the annual income +and interest on stock, and therefore are not disproportionate to its +means.</p> +<p>Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a most +unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, an Institution which has +for its President a nobleman <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a> +whose whole possessions are remarkable for taste and beauty, and whose +gardener’s laurels are famous throughout the world. In the +list of its vice-presidents there are the names of many noblemen and +gentlemen of great influence and station, and I have been struck in +glancing through the list of its supporters, with the sums written against +the names of the numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein comprised. +I hope the day will come when every gardener in England will be a member +of the charity.</p> +<p>The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this Institution +affords. His gains are not great; he knows gold and silver more +as being of the colour of fruits and flowers than by its presence in +his pockets; he is subjected to that kind of labour which renders him +peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when old age comes upon him, the +gardener is of all men perhaps best able to appreciate the merits of +such an institution.</p> +<p>To all indeed, present and absent, who are descended from the first</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“gardener Adam and his wife,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture +of flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary +or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager’s porch, +sweeps also over the grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain descends +on the just and on the unjust, so it communicates to all gardeners, +both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the +gardener of the rich man, in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour +or a delightful scent, is, in some sort, the gardener of everybody else.</p> +<p>The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and +all periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace +and men of war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. +The most ancient people of the earth had gardens where there is now +nothing but solitary heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded cities +gardens still in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories and workshops +people garden; and even the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely +cell, after years and years of solitary confinement. Surely, then, +the gardener who produces shapes and objects so lovely and so comforting, +should have some hold upon the world’s remembrance when he himself +becomes in need of comfort.</p> +<p>I will call upon you to drink “Prosperity to the Gardeners’ +Benevolent Institution,” and I beg to couple with that toast the +name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is +written in all his deeds, and who has communicated to his title and +his riches a lustre which no title and no riches could confer.</p> +<p>[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<p>My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I could +wish there were a closer parallel between myself and the American aloe. +It is particularly agreeable and appropriate to know that the parents +of this Institution are to be found in the seed and nursery trade; and +the seed having yielded such good fruit, and the nursery having produced +such a healthy child, I have the greatest pleasure in proposing the +health of the parents of the Institution.</p> +<p>[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<p>My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that +its conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always three in number. +Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three Graces, or to +those very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not know. Those +mystic letters are, however, most important, and no society can have +officers of more importance than its Treasurers, nor can it possibly +give them too much to do.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, +in Temple Row, Birmingham, a large company assembled to witness the +presentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of +a silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged +the tribute, and the address which accompanied it, in the following +words:-]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, to tender my acknowledgments +to you, and through you, to those many friends of mine whom you represent, +for this honour and distinction which you have conferred upon me. +I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the power of no great +representative of numbers of people to awaken such happiness in me as +is inspired by this token of goodwill and remembrance, coming to me +direct and fresh from the numbers themselves. I am truly sensible, +gentlemen, that my friends who have united in this address are partial +in their kindness, and regard what I have done with too great favour. +But I may say, with reference to one class - some members of which, +I presume, are included there - that I should in my own eyes be very +unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous feeling which has +been evinced, and this occasion, instead of pleasure, would give me +nothing but pain, if I was unable to assure them, and those who are +in front of this assembly, that what the working people have found me +towards them in my books, I am throughout my life. Gentlemen, +whenever I have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience, +gentleness, the reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to persuasion, +and their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have done so +because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and have +been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to communicate +to others.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all price +to me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful specimens of +the workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I assure you, and +with the liveliest gratitude. You remember something, I daresay, +of the old romantic stories of those charmed rings which would lose +their brilliance when their wearer was in danger, or would press his +finger reproachfully when he was going to do wrong. In the very +improbable event of my being in the least danger of deserting the principles +which have won me these tokens, I am sure the diamond in that ring would +assume a clouded aspect to my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze +a throb of pain out of my treacherous heart. But I have not the +least misgiving on that point; and, in this confident expectation, I +shall remove my own old diamond ring from my left hand, and in future +wear the Birmingham ring on my right, where its grasp will keep me in +mind of the good friends I have here, and in vivid remembrance of this +happy hour.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the Society to +whom these rooms belong, that the presentation has taken place in an +atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an apartment decorated with so +many beautiful works of art, among which I recognize before me the productions +of friends of mine, whose labours and triumphs will never be subjects +of indifference to me. I thank those gentlemen for giving me the +opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some connexion +with their own proceedings; and, though last not least, I tender my +acknowledgments to that charming presence, without which nothing beautiful +can be complete, and which is endearingly associated with rings of a +plainer description, and which, I must confess, awakens in my mind at +the present moment a feeling of regret that I am not in a condition +to make an offer of these testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, +to commend me very earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and +to assure them of my affectionate and heartfelt respect.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The company then adjourned to Dee’s Hotel, where a banquet +took place, at which about 220 persons were present, among whom were +some of the most distinguished of the Royal Academicians. To the +toast of “The Literature of England,” Mr. Dickens responded +as follows:-</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers +in that great field of literature to which you have pledged the toast, +to thank you for the tribute you have paid to it. Such an honour, +rendered by acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if I may +follow on the same side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) who lately +addressed you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never +forget - such an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to me a two-sided +illustration of the position that literature holds in these latter and, +of course, “degenerate” days. To the great compact +phalanx of the people, by whose industry, perseverance, and intelligence, +and their result in money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many +others like it, have arisen - to that great centre of support, that +comprehensive experience, and that beating heart, literature has turned +happily from individual patrons - sometimes munificent, often sordid, +always few - and has there found at once its highest purpose, its natural +range of action, and its best reward. Therefore it is right also, +as it seems to me, not only that literature should receive honour here, +but that it should render honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly +done good to Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. +From the shame of the purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and +dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at +my Lord Duke’s table to-day, and from the sponging-house or Marshalsea +to-morrow - from that venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has +degraded statesmen even to a greater extent than authors, because the +statesman entertained a low belief in the universality of corruption, +while the author yielded only to the dire necessity of his calling - +from all such evils the people have set literature free. And my +creed in the exercise of that profession is, that literature cannot +be too faithful to the people in return - cannot too ardently advocate +the cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have +heard it sometimes said - and what is worse, as expressing something +more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written - that literature +has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated by being made cheaper. +I have not found that to be the case: nor do I believe that you have +made the discovery either. But let a good book in these “bad” +times be made accessible, - even upon an abstruse and difficult subject, +so that it be one of legitimate interest to mankind, - and my life on +it, it shall be extensively bought, read, and well considered.</p> +<p>Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham +at this moment many working men infinitely better versed in Shakespeare +and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold +dedications and dear books. I ask anyone to consider for himself +who, at this time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to the +dissemination of such useful publications as “Macaulay’s +History,” “Layard’s Researches,” “Tennyson’s +Poems,” “The Duke of Wellington’s published Despatches,” +or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called minute) discovered +by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is with all these +things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon art +- if we had the good fortune to listen to one to-morrow - by my distinguished +friend the President of the Royal Academy. However small the audience, +however contracted the circle in the water, in the first instance, the +people are nearer the wider range outside, and the Sister Arts, while +they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage and improvement from +their ready sympathy and cordial response. I may instance the +case of my friend Mr. Ward’s magnificent picture; <a name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9">{9}</a> +and the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not +now the province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, +that it cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple, +- on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery - +but that it must be imbued with human passions and action, informed +with human right and wrong, and, being so informed, it may fearlessly +put itself upon its trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged by +God and its country.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to trouble +you again. For this time I have only once again to repeat what +I have already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end with +it. I would simply say that I believe no true man, with anything +to tell, need have the least misgiving, either for himself or his message, +before a large number of hearers - always supposing that he be not afflicted +with the coxcombical idea of writing down to the popular intelligence, +instead of writing the popular intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, +he be above it; - and, provided always that he deliver himself plainly +of what is in him, which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it +being supposed that he has some dim design of making himself understood. +On behalf of that literature to which you have done so much honour, +I beg to thank you most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most +flattering reception you have given to one whose claim is, that he has +the distinction of making it his profession.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, “The Educational +Institutions of Birmingham,” in the following speech:]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I am requested to propose - or, according to the hypothesis of my +friend, Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary character of a walking advertisement +to advertise to you - the Educational Institutions of Birmingham; an +advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure in calling your +attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in so many words, mention +the more prominent of these institutions, not because your local memories +require any prompting, but because the enumeration implies what has +been done here, what you are doing, and what you will yet do. +I believe the first is the King Edward’s Grammar School, with +its various branches, and prominent among them is that most admirable +means of training the wives of working men to be good wives and working +wives, the prime ornament of their homes, and the cause of happiness +to others - I mean those excellent girls’ schools in various parts +of the town, which, under the excellent superintendence of the principal, +I should most sincerely desire to see in every town in England. +Next, I believe, is the Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging +to the body of Independents, foremost among whose professors literature +is proud to hail Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest +contributors to the Edinburgh Review. The next is the Queen’s +College, which, I may say, is only a newly-born child; but, in the hands +of such an admirable Doctor, we may hope to see it arrive at a vigorous +maturity. The next is the School of Design, which, as has been +well observed by my friend Sir Charles Eastlake, is invaluable in such +a place as this; and, lastly, there is the Polytechnic Institution, +with regard to which I had long ago occasion to express my profound +conviction that it was of unspeakable importance to such a community +as this, when I had the honour to be present, under the auspices of +your excellent representative, Mr. Scholefield. This is the last +of what has been done in an educational way. They are all admirable +in their kind; but I am glad to find that more is yet doing. A +few days ago I received a Birmingham newspaper, containing a most interesting +account of a preliminary meeting for the formation of a Reformatory +School for juvenile delinquents. You are not exempt here from +the honour of saving these poor, neglected, and wretched outcasts. +I read of one infant, six years old, who has been twice as many times +in the hands of the police as years have passed over his devoted head. +These are the eggs from which gaol-birds are hatched; if you wish to +check that dreadful brood, you must take the young and innocent, and +have them reared by Christian hands.</p> +<p>Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme for +a new Literary and Scientific Institution, which would be worthy even +of this place, if there was nothing of the kind in it - an institution, +as I understand it, where the words “exclusion” and “exclusiveness” +shall be quite unknown - where all classes may assemble in common trust, +respect, and confidence - where there shall be a great gallery of painting +and statuary open to the inspection and admiration of all comers - where +there shall be a museum of models in which industry may observe its +various sources of manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, +and arrive at new results - where the very mines under the earth and +under the sea shall not be forgotten, but presented in little to the +inquiring eye - an institution, in short, where many and many of the +obstacles which now inevitably stand in the rugged way of the poor inventor +shall be smoothed away, and where, if he have anything in him, he will +find encouragement and hope.</p> +<p>I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body of +gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside their individual prepossessions +on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to be engaged in a design +as patriotic as well can be. They have the intention of meeting +in a few days to advance this great object, and I call upon you, in +drinking this toast, to drink success to their endeavour, and to make +it the pledge by all good means to promote it.</p> +<p>If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutions in +Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I intend to stop, merely +observing that I have seen within a short walk of this place one of +the most interesting and practical Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb +that has ever come under my observation. I have seen in the factories +and workshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and regularity, and +such great consideration for the workpeople provided, that they might +justly be entitled to be considered educational too. I have seen +in your splendid Town Hall, when the cheap concerts are going on there, +also an admirable educational institution. I have seen their results +in the demeanour of your working people, excellently balanced by a nice +instinct, as free from servility on the one hand, as from self-conceit +on the other. It is a perfect delight to have need to ask a question, +if only from the manner of the reply - a manner I never knew to pass +unnoticed by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and +a great marry more I have not touched upon, and weaving all into one +good fabric, remember how much is included under the general head of +the Educational Institutions of your town.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir Charles +Eastlake, proposed as a toast, “The Interests of Literature,” +and selected for the representatives of the world of letters, the Dean +of St. Paul’s and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean Milman having +returned thanks.]</p> +<p>Mr Dickens then addressed the President, who, it should be mentioned, +occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered with crimson velvet, +placed just before Stanfield’s picture of <i>The Victory.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and +the honour done him in associating his name with it, said that those +acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was unable to +recognize in this toast the President’s usual disinterestedness; +since English literature could scarcely be remembered in any place, +and, certainly, not in a school of art, without a very distinct remembrance +of his own tasteful writings, to say nothing of that other and better +part of himself, which, unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions.</p> +<p>If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount Hardinge), +he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief thanks with one +word of reference to the noble picture painted by a very dear friend +of his, which was a little eclipsed that evening by the radiant and +rubicund chair which the President now so happily toned down, he would +beg leave to say that, as literature could nowhere be more appropriately +honoured than in that place, so he thought she could nowhere feel a +higher gratification in the ties that bound her to the sister arts. +He ever felt in that place that literature found, through their instrumentality, +always a new expression, and in a universal language.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 1, 1853</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the +above date, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed as a toast “Anglo-Saxon +Literature,” and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction +as a means of awakening attention to the condition of the oppressed +and suffering classes:-]</p> +<p>“Mr. Dickens replied to this toast in a graceful and playful +strain. In the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast +on the chancery department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence +of the Lord Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, +not distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without reference +to it. The amount of what he said was, that the Court had received +a great many more hard opinions than it merited; that they had been +parsimoniously obliged to perform a great amount of business by a very +inadequate number of judges; but that more recently the number of judges +had been increased to seven, and there was reason to hope that all business +brought before it would now be performed without unnecessary delay.</p> +<p>“Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence; +said he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he trusted now that a suit, +in which he was greatly interested, would speedily come to an end. +I heard a little by-conversation between Mr. Dickens and a gentleman +of the bar, who sat opposite me, in which the latter seemed to be reiterating +the same assertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not extraordinarily +complicated might be got through with in three months. Mr. Dickens +said he was very happy to hear it; but I fancied there was a little +shade of incredulity in his manner; however, the incident showed one +thing, that is, that the chancery were not insensible to the representations +of Dickens; but the whole tone of the thing was quite good-natured and +agreeable.” <a name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10">{10}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens +on behalf of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, took place on Tuesday +evening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, where, notwithstanding +the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand persons had assembled. +The work selected was the <i>Christmas Carol</i>. The high mimetic +powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate with remarkable +force the various characters of the story, and with admirable skill +to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to trusting and +thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of Scrooge’s +nephew, to the hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe the Ragshop-keeper’s +parlour. The reading occupied more than three hours, but so interested +were the audience, that only one or two left the Hall previously to +its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts of applause attested +the successful discharge of the reader’s arduous task. On +Thursday evening Mr. Dickens read <i>The Cricket on the Hearth</i>. +The Hall was again well ruled, and the tale, though deficient in the +dramatic interest of the <i>Carol</i>, was listened to with attention, +and rewarded with repeated applause. On Friday evening, the <i>Christmas +Carol</i> was read a second time to a large assemblage of work-people, +for whom, at Mr. Dickens’s special request, the major part of +the vast edifice was reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. +Dickens delivered the following brief address, almost every sentence +of which was received with loudly expressed applause.]</p> +<p>My Good Friends, - When I first imparted to the committee of the +projected Institute my particular wish that on one of the evenings of +my readings here the main body of my audience should be composed of +working men and their families, I was animated by two desires; first, +by the wish to have the great pleasure of meeting you face to face at +this Christmas time, and accompany you myself through one of my little +Christmas books; and second, by the wish to have an opportunity of stating +publicly in your presence, and in the presence of the committee, my +earnest hope that the Institute will, from the beginning, recognise +one great principle - strong in reason and justice - which I believe +to be essential to the very life of such an Institution. It is, +that the working man shall, from the first unto the last, have a share +in the management of an Institution which is designed for his benefit, +and which calls itself by his name.</p> +<p>I have no fear here of being misunderstood - of being supposed to +mean too much in this. If there ever was a time when any one class +could of itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of society +- which I greatly doubt - that time is unquestionably past. It +is in the fusion of different classes, without confusion; in the bringing +together of employers and employed; in the creating of a better common +understanding among those whose interests are identical, who depend +upon each other, who are vitally essential to each other, and who never +can be in unnatural antagonism without deplorable results, that one +of the chief principles of a Mechanics’ Institution should consist. +In this world a great deal of the bitterness among us arises from an +imperfect understanding of one another. Erect in Birmingham a +great Educational Institution, properly educational; educational of +the feelings as well as of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham +men contribute; in which all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein +all orders of Birmingham men are faithfully represented - and you will +erect a Temple of Concord here which will be a model edifice to the +whole of England.</p> +<p>Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans’ Committee, +which not long ago considered the establishment of the Institute so +sensibly, and supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat the gentlemen +- earnest I know in the good work, and who are now among us, - by all +means to avoid the great shortcoming of similar institutions; and in +asking the working man for his confidence, to set him the great example +and give him theirs in return. You will judge for yourselves if +I promise too much for the working man, when I say that he will stand +by such an enterprise with the utmost of his patience, his perseverance, +sense, and support; that I am sure he will need no charitable aid or +condescending patronage; but will readily and cheerfully pay for the +advantages which it confers; that he will prepare himself in individual +cases where he feels that the adverse circumstances around him have +rendered it necessary; in a word, that he will feel his responsibility +like an honest man, and will most honestly and manfully discharge it. +I now proceed to the pleasant task to which I assure you I have looked +forward for a long time.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, +and “three cheers, with three times three.” As soon +as the enthusiasm of the audience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens +said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>You have heard so much of my voice since we met to-night, that I +will only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your regard, +that I am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any little service +I have rendered to you I have freely rendered from my heart; that I +hope to become an honorary member of your great Institution, and will +meet you often there when it becomes practically useful; that I thank +you most affectionately for this new mark of your sympathy and approval; +and that I wish you many happy returns of this great birthday-time, +and many prosperous years.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary +Dinner in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial Travellers’ +Schools, held at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickens +presided on this occasion, and proposed the toasts.]</p> +<p>I think it may be assumed that most of us here present know something +about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or foreign +countries, although I dare say some of us have had experience in that +way, but at home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. +I dare say most of us have had experience of the extinct “fast +coaches,” the “Wonders,” “Taglionis,” +and “Tallyhos,” of other days. I daresay most of us +remember certain modest postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, +through slush and mud, to little country towns with no visible population, +except half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women with umbrellas +and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under the gables, +to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I dare +say, if so minded, about our recollections of the “Talbot,” +the “Queen’s Head,” or the “Lion” of those +days. We have all been to that room on the ground floor on one +side of the old inn yard, not quite free from a certain fragrant smell +of tobacco, where the cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed +by the skirts of the box-coats that hung from the wall; where awkward +servants waylaid us at every turn, like so many human man-traps; where +county members, framed and glazed, were eternally presenting that petition +which, somehow or other, had made their glory in the county, although +nothing else had ever come of it. Where the books in the windows +always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves, and where the one +man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the night, and requiring +his breakfast at a similarly singular period of the day. I have +no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts of our favourite +hotel, wherever it was - its beds, its stables, its vast amount of posting, +its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital dishes, its pigeon-pies, +or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal our chaste and innocent +admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal regard for its handsome +chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic once writing of a famous +actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her the character +of being an “eminently gatherable-to-one’s-arms sort of +person.” Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat +similar tribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided +at our hotels.</p> +<p>With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no +doubt, equally familiar. We know all about that station to which +we must take our ticket, although we never get there; and the other +one at which we arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile from +the town, where the old road is sure to have been abolished, and the +new road is going to be made - where the old neighbourhood has been +tumbled down, and the new one is not half built up. We know all +about that party on the platform who, with the best intentions, can +do nothing for our luggage except pitch it into all sorts of unattainable +places. We know all about that short omnibus, in which one is +to be doubled up, to the imminent danger of the crown of one’s +hat; and about that fly, whose leading peculiarity is never to be there +when it is wanted. We know, too, how instantaneously the lights +of the station disappear when the train starts, and about that grope +to the new Railway Hotel, which will be an excellent house when the +customers come, but which at present has nothing to offer but a liberal +allowance of damp mortar and new lime.</p> +<p>I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object +of increasing your interest in the purpose of this night’s assemblage. +Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it +the more from his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the +same lesson unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. +He may have his experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; +but home is the best, after all, and its pleasures are the most heartily +and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, every +one must be prepared to learn that commercial travellers, as a body, +know how to prize those domestic relations from which their pursuits +so frequently sever them; for no one could possibly invent a more delightful +or more convincing testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered +in founding and maintaining a school for the children of deceased or +unfortunate members of their own body; those children who now appeal +to you in mute but eloquent terms from the gallery.</p> +<p>It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly +objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its solid +and practical results, that we are here to-night. It is to roof +that building which is to shelter the children of your deceased friends +with one crowning ornament, the best that any building can have, namely, +a receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this +that your active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your +own good work. You know how to put your hands to the plough in +earnest as well as any men in existence, for this little book informs +me that you raised last year no less a sum than £8000, and while +fully half of that sum consisted of new donations to the building fund, +I find that the regular revenue of the charity has only suffered to +the extent of £30. After this, I most earnestly and sincerely +say that were we all authors together, I might boast, if in my profession +were exhibited the same unity and steadfastness I find in yours.</p> +<p>I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the +vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of brotherhood +which ought always to exist amongst men who are united in a common pursuit. +You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that I will not presume +to lay them before you in any further detail. Suffice it to say +that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by halves. +I do not think you could do so if you tried, and I have a moral certainty +that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are not +members of the travellers’ body, I will say in the words of the +French proverb, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” +The Commercial Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it +is clear that the visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives +ought to bring that aid in their pockets which the precept teaches us +to expect from them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you +as a toast, “Success to the Commercial Travellers’ School.”</p> +<p>[In proposing the health of the Army in the Crimea, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<p>IT does not require any extraordinary sagacity in a commercial assembly +to appreciate the dire evils of war. The great interests of trade +enfeebled by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all +the peaceful arts bent down before it, too palpably indicate its character +and results, so that far less practical intelligence than that by which +I am surrounded would be sufficient to appreciate the horrors of war. +But there are seasons when the evils of peace, though not so acutely +felt, are immeasurably greater, and when a powerful nation, by admitting +the right of any autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds +of its own ruin, and overshadows itself in time to come with that fatal +influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to exercise over +their weaker neighbours.</p> +<p>Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its +root in English ground from which the yard wand can be made that will +measure - the mine has not its place in English soil that will supply +the material of a pair of scales to weigh the influence that may be +at stake in the war in which we are now straining all our energies. +That war is, at any time and in any shape, a most dreadful and deplorable +calamity, we need no proverb to tell us; but it is just because it is +such a calamity, and because that calamity must not for ever be impending +over us at the fancy of one man against all mankind, that we must not +allow that man to darken from our view the figures of peace and justice +between whom and us he now interposes.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true spirits +of two countries were really fighting in the cause of human advancement +and freedom - no matter what diplomatic notes or other nameless botherations, +from number one to one hundred thousand and one, may have preceded their +taking the field - if ever there were a time when noble hearts were +deserving well of mankind by exposing themselves to the obedient bayonets +of a rash and barbarian tyrant, it is now, when the faithful children +of England and France are fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those +faithful children are the admiration and wonder of the world, so gallantly +are they discharging their duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly, +emphatically representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink +the health of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all possible +honours.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[In proposing the health of the Treasurer, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>If the President of this Institution had been here, I should possibly +have made one of the best speeches you ever heard; but as he is not +here, I shall turn to the next toast on my list:- “The health +of your worthy Treasurer, Mr. George Moore,” a name which is a +synonym for integrity, enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence. +He is one of the most zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears +to me to have been doing nothing during the last week but rushing into +and out of railway-carriages, and making eloquent speeches at all sorts +of public dinners in favour of this charity. Last evening he was +at Manchester, and this evening he comes here, sacrificing his time +and convenience, and exhausting in the meantime the contents of two +vast leaden inkstands and no end of pens, with the energy of fifty bankers’ +clerks rolled into one. But I clearly foresee that the Treasurer +will have so much to do to-night, such gratifying sums to acknowledge +and such large lines of figures to write in his books, that I feel the +greatest consideration I can show him is to propose his health without +further observation, leaving him to address you in his own behalf. +I propose to you, therefore, the health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer +of this charity, and I need hardly add that it is one which is to be +drunk with all the honours.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens rose and said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both in +fact and in fiction, that I have heard recently of a proposal for the +establishment of a Company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to take it down. +Only one of those travellers, however, has been enabled to bring Mont +Blanc to Piccadilly, and, by his own ability and good humour, so to +thaw its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid lady may ascend +it twice a-day, “during the holidays,” without the smallest +danger or fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us +to-night, is undoubtedly “a traveller.” I do not know +whether he takes many orders, but this I can testify, on behalf of the +children of his friends, that he gives them in the most liberal manner.</p> +<p>We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also +a traveller, not only in right of his able edition of Goldsmith’s +“Traveller,” but in right of his admirable Handbook, which +proves him to be a traveller in the right spirit through all the labyrinths +of London. We have also amongst us my friend Horace Mayhew, very +well known also for his books, but especially for his genuine admiration +of the company at that end of the room [<i>Mr. Dickens here pointed +to the ladies gallery</i>], and who, whenever the fair sex is mentioned, +will be found to have the liveliest personal interest in the conversation.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health of +these three distinguished visitors. They are all admirable speakers, +but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed to me, that on fairly balancing his +own merits as a speaker and a singer, he rather thinks he excels in +the latter art. I have, therefore, yielded to his estimate of +himself, and I have now the pleasure of informing you that he will lead +off the speeches of the other two gentlemen with a song. Mr. Albert +Smith has just said to me in an earnest tone of voice, “What song +would you recommend?” and I replied, “Galignani’s +Messenger.” Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore beg to propose +the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and Horace +Mayhew, and call on the first-named gentleman for a song.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, +WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1855.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I cannot, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception +accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to compress +what I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. +It is more than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of +men who “thought they should be heard for their much speaking.” +As they have propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe +that they flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, +I will do my best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific race. +The noble lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament +about a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having +stated in this place what the whole country knows perfectly well to +be true, and what no man in it can by possibility better know to be +true than those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had +the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when +he first became premier - I mean that he did officially and habitually +joke, at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress +- I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this +age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to +distinguish himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity +of having so come between the wind and his nobility, turned an airy +period with reference to the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. +Now, I have some slight acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, +and I will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not say +that if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty’s servants, +I think I should know where to put my hand on “the comic old gentleman;” +nor, that if I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what +establishment to go to for the tricks and changes; also, for a very +considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that +contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these and on +other boards, in which the principal objects thrown about are loaves +and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the reason for +these private theatricals, and the reason why, however ardently he may +desire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is not the faintest +present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It is this:- The +public theatricals which the noble lord is so condescending as to manage +are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts so ill-distributed, +the company so full of “walking gentlemen,” the managers +have such large families, and are so bent upon putting those families +into what is theatrically called “first business” - not +because of their aptitude for it, but because they <i>are</i> their +families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. +We have seen the <i>Comedy of Errors</i> played so dismally like a tragedy +that we really cannot bear it. We are, therefore, making bold +to get up the <i>School of Reform</i>, and we hope, before the play +is out, to improve that noble lord by our performance very considerably. +If he object that we have no right to improve him without his license, +we venture to claim that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting +of a very powerful piper, whom we always pay.</p> +<p>Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, +and as my trade and calling is not associated with politics, perhaps +it may be useful for me to show how I came to be here, because reasons +similar to those which have influenced me may still be trembling in +the balance in the minds of others. I want at all times, in full +sincerity, to do my duty by my countrymen. If <i>I</i> feel an +attachment towards them, there is nothing disinterested or meritorious +in that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence +and friendship that they have long reposed in me. My sphere of +action - which I shall never change - I shall never overstep, further +than this, or for a longer period than I do to-night. By literature +I have lived, and through literature I have been content to serve my +country; and I am perfectly well aware that I cannot serve two masters. +In my sphere of action I have tried to understand the heavier social +grievances, and to help to set them right. When the <i>Times</i> +newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to the +ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplaced men and misdirected +things, which had made England unable to find on the face of the earth, +an enemy one-twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and ruin +of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy +silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect in +which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With shame +and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new +element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty +and crime, which is always below us - with little adequate expression +of the general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, +in Parliament - with the machinery of Government and the legislature +going round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, +as if they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, +when it had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them +- I did and do believe that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing +could possibly take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking +of the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty +to effect a great peaceful constitutional change in the administration +of their own affairs. At such a crisis this association arose; +at such a crisis I joined it: considering its further case to be - if +further case could possibly be needed - that what is everybody’s +business is nobody’s business, that men must be gregarious in +good citizenship as well as in other things, and that it is a law in +nature that there must be a centre of attraction for particles to fly +to, before any serviceable body with recognised functions can come into +existence. This association has arisen, and we belong to it. +What are the objections to it? I have heard in the main but three, +which I will now briefly notice. It is said that it is proposed +by this association to exercise an influence, through the constituencies, +on the House of Commons. I have not the least hesitation in saying +that I have the smallest amount of faith in the House of Commons at +present existing and that I consider the exercise of such influence +highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this country. I +was reading no later than yesterday the book of Mr. Pepys, which is +rather a favourite of mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, writing +of the House of Commons, says:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest +grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust of being +a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can see, +out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many +years after a Reform Bill, the house of Commons is so little changed, +I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that +bills which cramp and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, +are so easily passed, and how it happens that measures for their real +interests are so very difficult to be got through Parliament. +I will not analyse the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their +primitive gases its deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable +Member who was once a candidate for the honour of your - and my - independent +vote and interest. I will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, +full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on +its lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal altercations, +involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare’s Touchstone +- the retort courteous - the quip modest - the reply churlish - the +reproof valiant - the countercheck quarrelsome - the lie circumstantial +and the lie direct - are of immeasurably greater interest in the House +of Commons than the health, the taxation, and the education, of a whole +people. I will not penetrate into the mysteries of that secret +chamber in which the Bluebeard of Party keeps his strangled public questions, +and with regard to which, when he gives the key to his wife, the new +comer, he strictly charges her on no account to open the door. +I will merely put it to the experience of everybody here, whether the +House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, a little +dim of sight, a little slow of understanding, and whether, in short, +it is not in a sufficiency invalided state to require close watching, +and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and whether it is +not capable of considerable improvement? I believe that, in order +to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, the people +must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have its memory +jogged; and be kept awake when it happens to have taken too much Ministerial +narcotic; it must be trotted about, and must be bustled and pinched +in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. I hold that +no power can deprive us of the right to administer our functions as +a body comprising electors from all parts of the country, associated +together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, +unmeaning routine, or worn-out conventionalities.</p> +<p>This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this +Association sets class against class. Is this so? (<i>Cries +of</i> “No.”) No, it finds class set against +class, and seeks to reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in +opposition those two words - Aristocracy and People. I am one +who can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and would not on any +account deprive either of a single just right belonging to it. +I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the governors and the +governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between +them, in which are lying, newly-buried, thousands on thousands of the +bravest and most devoted men that even England ever bred. It is +to prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, +that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary consummation, +and to bring together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each +other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, +with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. +Setting class against class! That is the very parrot prattle that +we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following example:- +A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great number +of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked them to give +his children bread, gave them stones; who, when they were told to give +those children fish, gave them serpents. When they were ordered +to send to the East, they sent to the West; when they ought to have +been serving dinner in the North, they were consulting exploded cookery +books in the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another +when required to do anything, and were bringing everything to ruin. +At last the respectable gentleman calls his house steward, and says, +even then more in sorrow than in anger, “This is a terrible business; +no fortune can stand it - no mortal equanimity can bear it! I +must change my system; I must obtain servants who will do their duty.” +The house steward throws up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates “Good +God, master, you are setting class against class!” and then rushes +off into the servants’ hall, and delivers a long and melting oration +on that wicked feeling.</p> +<p>I now come to the third objection, which is common among young gentlemen +who are not particularly fit for anything but spending money which they +have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, “How +very extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can’t +mind their own business.” I think it will occur to all that +a very sufficient mode of disposing of this objection is to say, that +it is our own business we mind when we come forward in this way, and +it is to prevent it from being mismanaged by them. I observe from +the Parliamentary debates - which have of late, by-the-bye, frequently +suggested to me that there is this difference between the bull of Spain +the bull of Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes +at the scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull +- I have observed from the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious +fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and the +counter-check quarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing the necessity +of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. +I daresay I should have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to +the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be +contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the +people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case +has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can +be, and they never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, +very well known story, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it +that I will substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I may avoid, +I hope, the sacred wrath of St. Stephen’s. Ages ago a savage +mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court +of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept +his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable +revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, +of the Tutor’s Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also +born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers, and actuaries, +were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these +notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still +the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm +wood called “tallies.” In the reign of George III. +an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, +and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence +to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought +not to be effected.</p> +<p>All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of +this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these +sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable +accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done +with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare +say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, +on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, +and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing +could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood +by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, +they never had been useful, and official routine required that they +never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately +and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt +in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these +preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire +to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; +the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build +others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof; the national +pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, +hasn’t got home to-night.</p> +<p>Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all obstinate +adherence to rubbish which the time has long outlived, is certain to +have in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; +and that will some day set fire to something or other; which, if given +boldly to the winds would have been harmless; but which, obstinately +retained, is ruinous. I believe myself that when Administrative +Reform goes up it will be idle to hope to put it down, on this or that +particular instance. The great, broad, and true cause that our +public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are +not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of +business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be +as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars. To set this +right, and to clear the way in the country for merit everywhere: accepting +it equally whether it be aristocratic or democratic, only asking whether +it be honest or true, is, I take it, the true object of this Association. +This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large numbers of +the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they may better +comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves, and impress upon others, +the common public duty. Also, of which there is great need, that +by keeping a vigilant eye on the skirmishers thrown out from time to +time by the Party of Generals, they may see that their feints and manoeuvres +do not oppress the small defaulters and release the great, and that +they do not gull the public with a mere field-day Review of Reform, +instead of an earnest, hard-fought Battle. I have had no consultation +with any one upon the subject, but I particularly wish that the directors +may devise some means of enabling intelligent working men to join this +body, on easier terms than subscribers who have larger resources. +I could wish to see great numbers of them belong to us, because I sincerely +believe that it would be good for the common weal.</p> +<p>Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard +asked him for a day for his motion, “Let the hon. gentleman find +a day for himself.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Now, in the names of all the gods at once,<br />Upon what +meat doth this our Caesar feed<br />That he is grown so great?”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing +that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, “First Lord, your +duty it is to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. +See you, who take the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, +live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail +when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. +In this old country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy +taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, and its crowds of +wicked, woe the day when the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, +because the head of the Government failed in his duty in not anticipating +it by a brighter and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord; +make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, +and History in return may then - not otherwise - find a day for you; +a day equally associated with the contentment of the loyal, patient, +willing-hearted English people, and with the happiness of your Royal +Mistress and her fair line of children.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol +in the Mechanics’ Hall in behalf of the funds of the Institute.</p> +<p>After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few gentlemen +in Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens for his acceptance a very handsome +service of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a pair of fish carvers, +as some substantial manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens +for his kindness in coming to Sheffield. Henceforth the Christmas +of 1855 would be associated in his mind with the name of that gentleman.]</p> +<p>Mr. Charles Dickens, in receiving the presentation, said, he accepted +with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens +of Sheffield-workmanship; and he begged to assure them that the kind +observations which had been made by the Mayor, and the way in which +they had been responded to by that assembly, would never be obliterated +from his remembrance. The present testified not only to the work +of Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. +It was his earnest desire to do right by his readers, and to leave imaginative +and popular literature associated with the private homes and public +rights of the people of England. The case of cutlery with which +he had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in +his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his +death to the principles which had earned for him their approval. +In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, +and many happy new years.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on +Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one hundred and fifty gentlemen +sat down to dinner, in the Freemasons’ Hall. Later in the +evening all the seats in the gallery were filled with ladies interested +in the success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other +toasts, the Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed “Prosperity to the +Hospital for Sick Children,” and said:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - It is one of my rules in life not to believe +a man who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in children. +I hold myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because +I know, as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen its +affections and sympathies against those dear little people must be wanting +in so many humanising experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to +be quite an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the +assertion down, whenever I happen to meet with it - which is sometimes, +though not often - as an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel +languor of the hour, and meaning about as much as that knowing social +lassitude, which has used up the cardinal virtues and quite found out +things in general, usually does mean. I suppose it may be taken +for granted that we, who come together in the name of children and for +the sake of children, acknowledge that we have an interest in them; +indeed, I have observed since I sit down here that we are quite in a +childlike state altogether, representing an infant institution, and +not even yet a grown-up company. A few years are necessary to +the increase of our strength and the expansion of our figure; and then +these tables, which now have a few tucks in them, will be let out, and +then this hall, which now sits so easily upon us, will be too tight +and small for us. Nevertheless, it is likely that even we are +not without our experience now and then of spoilt children. I +do not mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody’s own children +ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our particular +friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down after +dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert +to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the +distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is to +assist at those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated +with imitations and descriptive dialogue which might not be inaptly +called, after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome +ascent of Miss Mary and the eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. +We know what it is when those children won’t go to bed; we know +how they prop their eyelids open with their forefingers when they will +sit up; how, when they become fractious, they say aloud that they don’t +like us, and our nose is too long, and why don’t we go? +And we are perfectly acquainted with those kicking bundles which are +carried off at last protesting. An eminent eye-witness told me +that he was one of a company of learned pundits who assembled at the +house of a very distinguished philosopher of the last generation to +hear him expound his stringent views concerning infant education and +early mental development, and he told me that while the philosopher +did this in very beautiful and lucid language, the philosopher’s +little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by dabbling up +to the elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for their entertainment, +having previously anointed his hair with the syrup, combed it with his +fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable that we also +have our similar experiences sometimes, of principles that are not quite +practice, and that we know people claiming to be very wise and profound +about nations of men who show themselves to be rather weak and shallow +about units of babies.</p> +<p>But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to present +to you after this dinner of to-day are not of this class. I have +glanced at these for the easier and lighter introduction of another, +a very different, a far more numerous, and a far more serious class. +The spoilt children whom I must show you are the spoilt children of +the poor in this great city, the children who are, every year, for ever +and ever irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of ours by tens +of thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you, assisting +and not contravening the ways of Providence, will help to save them. +The two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children +before you, preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, +nail down their little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. +Of the annual deaths in this great town, their unnatural deaths form +more than one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom +as to the other class - I shall not ask you on behalf of these children +to observe how good they are, how pretty they are, how clever they are, +how promising they are, whose beauty they most resemble - I shall only +ask you to observe how weak they are, and how like death they are! +And I shall ask you, by the remembrance of everything that lies between +your own infancy and that so miscalled second childhood when the child’s +graces are gone and nothing but its helplessness remains; I shall ask +you to turn your thoughts to <i>these</i> spoilt children in the sacred +names of Pity and Compassion.</p> +<p>Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane +members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some +of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. +In the closes and wynds of that picturesque place - I am sorry to remind +you what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus often are - we saw +more poverty and sickness in an hour than many people would believe +in a life. Our way lay from one to another of the most wretched +dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out from the sky, shut +out from the air, mere pits and dens. In a room in one of these +places, where there was an empty porridge-pot on the cold hearth, with +a ragged woman and some ragged children crouching on the bare ground +near it - where, I remember as I speak, that the very light, refracted +from a high damp-stained and time-stained house-wall, came trembling +in, as if the fever which had shaken everything else there had shaken +even it - there lay, in an old egg-box which the mother had begged from +a shop, a little feeble, wasted, wan, sick child. With his little +wasted face, and his little hot, worn hands folded over his breast, +and his little bright, attentive eyes, I can see him now, as I have +seen him for several years, look in steadily at us. There he lay +in his little frail box, which was not at all a bad emblem of the little +body from which he was slowly parting - there he lay, quite quiet, quite +patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the mother said; +he seldom complained; “he lay there, seemin’ to woonder +what it was a’ aboot.” God knows, I thought, as I +stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering - reasons for +wondering how it could possibly come to be that he lay there, left alone, +feeble and full of pain, when he ought to have been as bright and as +brisk as the birds that never got near him - reasons for wondering how +he came to be left there, a little decrepid old man pining to death, +quite a thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy and happy +children playing on the grass under the summer’s sun within a +stone’s throw of him, as if there were no bright, moving sea on +the other side of the great hill overhanging the city; as if there were +no great clouds rushing over it; as if there were no life, and movement, +and vigour anywhere in the world - nothing but stoppage and decay. +There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence, more pathetically +than I have ever heard anything said by any orator in my life, “Will +you please to tell me what this means, strange man? and if you can give +me any good reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced on my way +to Him who said that children were to come into His presence and were +not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that they should +come by this hard road by which I am travelling; pray give that reason +to me, for I seek it very earnestly and wonder about it very much;” +and to my mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many +a poor child, sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this +London; many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately and kindly +tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward circumstances, +wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such times I have +seen my poor little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he has always +addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always found him wondering +what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious God, such things should +be!</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not +be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great +compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and +prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile +of this place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where once, +no doubt, blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, +and married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter +up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder +at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards +into which the old state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that +house are now converted are such little patients that the attendant +nurses look like reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner +like an amiable Christian ogre. Grouped about the little low tables +in the centre of the rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem +to be playing at having been ill. On the doll’s beds are +such diminutive creatures that each poor sufferer is supplied with its +tray of toys; and, looking round, you may see how the little tired, +flushed cheek has toppled over half the brute creation on its way into +the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw myself) +the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the walls of these rooms +are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. At the bed’s +heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal embodiment +of all mercy and compassion, the figure of Him who was once a child +himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on the +beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out-patients +brought to that house for relief is no fewer than ten thousand in the +compass of one single year. In the room in which these are received, +you may see against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it +has been calculated, that if every grateful mother who brings a child +there will drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly be +increased in a year by so large a sum as forty pounds. And you +may read in the Hospital Report, with a glow of pleasure, that these +poor women are so respondent as to have made, even in a toiling year +of difficulty and high prices, this estimated forty, fifty pounds. +In the printed papers of this same Hospital, you may read with what +a generous earnestness the highest and wisest members of the medical +profession testify to the great need of it; to the immense difficulty +of treating children in the same hospitals with grown-up people, by +reason of their different ailments and requirements, to the vast amount +of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will be saved, through +this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but among the prosperous +too, by reason of the increased knowledge of children’s illnesses, +which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic mode of studying them. +Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst of all - (for I must +present no rose-coloured picture of this place to you - I must not deceive +you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s Hospital, reckoning +up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce obliged to stop +at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow and surprise, +that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive, +compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless +the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to saying better known, +because I will not believe that in a Christian community of fathers +and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, +to be well and richly endowed.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment - which +I resolved when I got up not to allow myself - this is the simple case. +This is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf +of the thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but +also on behalf of the thousands of children who live half developed, +racked with preventible pain, shorn of their natural capacity for health +and enjoyment. If these innocent creatures cannot move you for +themselves, how can I possibly hope to move you in their name? +The most delightful paper, the most charming essay, which the tender +imagination of Charles Lamb conceived, represents him as sitting by +his fireside on a winter night telling stories to his own dear children, +and delighting in their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, +solitary, bachelor self, and finds that they were but dream-children +who might have been, but never were. “We are nothing,” +they say to him; “less than nothing, and dreams. We are +only what might have been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore of +Lethe, millions of ages, before we have existence and a name.” +“And immediately awaking,” he says, “I found myself +in my arm chair.” The dream-children whom I would now raise, +if I could, before every one of you, according to your various circumstances, +should be the dear child you love, the dearer child you have lost, the +child you might have had, the child you certainly have been. Each +of these dream-children should hold in its powerful hand one of the +little children now lying in the Child’s Hospital, or now shut +out of it to perish. Each of these dream-children should say to +you, “O, help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for +my sake!” Well! - And immediately awaking, you should find +yourselves in the Freemasons’ Hall, happily arrived at the end +of a rather long speech, drinking “Prosperity to the Hospital +for Sick Children,” and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol +in the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the Philosophical +Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost +of Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. +Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute as follows:]</p> +<p>My Lord Provost, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am +deeply sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and great +surprise; and that I thank you cordially with all my heart. I +never have forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour +to be a burgess and guild-brother of the Corporation of Edinburgh. +As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the first great public recognition +and encouragement I ever received was bestowed on me in this generous +and magnificent city - in this city so distinguished in literature and +so distinguished in the arts. You will readily believe that I +have carried into the various countries I have since traversed, and +through all my subsequent career, the proud and affectionate remembrance +of that eventful epoch in my life; and that coming back to Edinburgh +is to me like coming home.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice to-night, +that I will not inflict on you the additional task of hearing any more. +I am better reconciled to limiting myself to these very few words, because +I know and feel full well that no amount of speech to which I could +give utterance could possibly express my sense of the honour and distinction +you have conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification I derive from +this reception.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical +Fund, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, at which Thackeray presided, +Mr. Dickens made the following speech:]</p> +<p>In our theatrical experience as playgoers we are all equally accustomed +to predict by certain little signs and portents on the stage what is +going to happen there. When the young lady, an admiral’s +daughter, is left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain +smart spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath +her feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen +enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are +in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it will assume a retrospective +biographical character. When any of the performers who belong +to the sea-faring or marauding professions are observed to arm themselves +with very small swords to which are attached very large hilts, we predict +that the affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the association +of ideas, it may have occurred to some that when I asked my old friend +in the chair to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and +I have him now on my lips.</p> +<p>The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office which I +hold, are not so frequent or so great as its privileges. He is +in fact a mere walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that +he has no one to love. If this advantage could be added to his +character it would be one of a more agreeable nature than it is, and +his forlorn position would be greatly improved. His duty is to +call every half year at the bankers’, when he signs his name in +a large greasy inconvenient book, to certain documents of which he knows +nothing, and then he delivers it to the property man and exits anywhere.</p> +<p>He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges +to watch the steady growth of an institution in which he takes great +interest; it is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the prudence, +the goodness, the self-denial, and the excellence of a class of persons +who have been too long depreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied, +out of the depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And +lastly, it is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose +the health of the chairman at the annual dinners of the institution, +when that chairman is one for whose genius he entertains the warmest +admiration, and whom he respects as a friend, and as one who does honour +to literature, and in whom literature is honoured. I say when +that is the case, he feels that this last privilege is a great and high +one. From the earliest days of this institution I have ventured +to impress on its managers, that they would consult its credit and success +by choosing its chairmen as often as possible within the circle of literature +and the arts; and I will venture to say that no similar institution +has been presided over by so many remarkable and distinguished men. +I am sure, however, that it never has had, and that it never will have, +simply because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by +the presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night.</p> +<p>It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on myself +to flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. Thackeray’s +books, and to tell you to observe how full they are of wit and wisdom, +how out-speaking, and how devoid of fear or favour; but I will take +leave to remark, in paying my due homage and respect to them, that it +is fitting that such a writer and such an institution should be brought +together. Every writer of fiction, although he may not adopt the +dramatic form, writes in effect for the stage. He may never write +plays; but the truth and passion which are in him must be more or less +reflected in the great mirror which he holds up to nature. Actors, +managers, and authors are all represented in this company, and it maybe +supposed that they all have studied the deep wants of the human heart +in many theatres; but none of them could have studied its mysterious +workings in any theatre to greater advantage than in the bright and +airy pages of <i>Vanity Fair</i>. To this skilful showman, who +has so often delighted us, and who has charmed us again to-night, we +have now to wish God speed, and that he may continue for many years +<a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11">{11}</a> to exercise +his potent art. To him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter, +God bless him!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week +of 1853, and on several subsequent occasions, Mr. Dickens had read the +<i>Christmas</i> <i>Carol</i> and the <i>Chimes</i> before public audiences, +but always in aid of the funds of some institution, or for other benevolent +purposes. The first reading he ever gave for his own benefit took +place on the above date, in St. Martin’s Hall, (now converted +into the Queen’s Theatre). This reading Mr. Dickens prefaced +with the following speech:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - It may perhaps be in known to you that, for +a few years past, I have been accustomed occasionally to read some of +my shorter books, to various audiences, in aid of a variety of good +objects, and at some charge to myself, both in time and money. +It having at length become impossible in any reason to comply with these +always accumulating demands, I have had definitively to choose between +now and then reading on my own account, as one of my recognised occupations, +or not reading at all. I have had little or no difficulty in deciding +on the former course. The reasons that have led me to it - besides +the consideration that it necessitates no departure whatever from the +chosen pursuits of my life - are threefold: firstly, I have satisfied +myself that it can involve no possible compromise of the credit and +independence of literature; secondly, I have long held the opinion, +and have long acted on the opinion, that in these times whatever brings +a public man and his public face to face, on terms of mutual confidence +and respect, is a good thing; thirdly, I have had a pretty large experience +of the interest my hearers are so generous as to take in these occasions, +and of the delight they give to me, as a tried means of strengthening +those relations - I may almost say of personal friendship - which it +is my great privilege and pride, as it is my great responsibility, to +hold with a multitude of persons who will never hear my voice nor see +my face. Thus it is that I come, quite naturally, to be here among +you at this time; and thus it is that I proceed to read this little +book, quite as composedly as I might proceed to write it, or to publish +it in any other way.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 1, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal +Academy, after the health of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray had been +proposed by the President, Sir Charles Eastlake:-]</p> +<p>Following the order of your toast, I have to take the first part +in the duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you +have paid to literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too +much an interchange of compliments, as it were, between near relations, +to enter into any lengthened expression of our thanks for the honour +you have done us. I feel that it would be changing this splendid +assembly into a sort of family party. I may, however, take leave +to say that your sister, whom I represent, is strong and healthy; that +she has a very great affection for, and an undying interest in you, +and that it is always a very great gratification to her to see herself +so well remembered within these walls, and to know that she is an honoured +guest at your hospitable board.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, JULY 21, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess’s +Theatre, for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic +College. Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered +the following speech:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - I think I may venture to congratulate you +beforehand on the pleasant circumstance that the movers and seconders +of the resolutions which will be submitted to you will, probably, have +very little to say. Through the Report which you have heard read, +and through the comprehensive address of the chairman, the cause which +brings us together has been so very clearly stated to you, that it can +stand in need of very little, if of any further exposition. But, +as I have the honour to move the first resolution which this handsome +gift, and the vigorous action that must be taken upon it, necessitate, +I think I shall only give expression to what is uppermost in the general +mind here, if I venture to remark that, many as the parts are in which +Mr. Kean has distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared +in one in which the large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, +and the grace of a gentleman, have been more admirably blended than +in this day’s faithful adherence to the calling of which he is +a prosperous ornament, and in this day’s manly advocacy of its +cause.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is:</p> +<p>“That the Report of the provisional committee be adopted, and +that this meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully acknowledges, the +gift of five acres of land referred to in the said Report.” <a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a></p> +<p>It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this acceptance +and acknowledgment, and that we all know very well that this generous +gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of every lover of the +dramatic art. As it is far too often forgotten by those who are +indebted to it for many a restorative flight out of this working-day +world, that the silks, and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professors +must be every night exchanged for the hideous coats and waistcoats of +the present day, in which we have now the honour and the misfortune +of appearing before you, so when we do meet with a nature so considerably +generous as this donor’s, and do find an interest in the real +life and struggles of the people who have delighted it, so very spontaneous +and so very liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and to admire, +we have no duty left but to “take the goods the gods provide us,” +and to make the best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen, +allow me to remark, that in this mode of turning a good gift to the +highest account, lies the truest gratitude.</p> +<p>In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was +speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, the spot upon which +we are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty +and a cruel bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal +of Venice will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where +I now stand dryshod, and that “the quality of mercy” will +be beautifully stated to the Venetian Council by a learned young doctor +from Padua, on these very boards on which we now enlarge upon the quality +of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it came into my mind to +consider how different the real bond of to-day from the ideal bond of +to-night. Now, all generosity, all forbearance, all forgetfulness +of little jealousies and unworthy divisions, all united action for the +general good. Then, all selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, +all revenge, and all evil, - now all good. Then, a bond to be +broken within the compass of a few - three or four - swiftly passing +hours, - now, a bond to be valid and of good effect generations hence.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this bond, +between this generous gentleman on the one hand, and the united members +of a too often and too long disunited art upon the other, be you the +witnesses. Do you attest of everything that is liberal and free +in spirit, that is “so nominated in the bond;” and of everything +that is grudging, self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by no +sophistry ever to be found there. I beg to move the resolution +which I have already had the pleasure of reading.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the +Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the Free-trade +Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr. Dickens presided.]</p> +<p>It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn +season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice +that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls +of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, +and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, +for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a +quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some supposed to have +had upon the corn-harvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know +that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so +heavily under a pressure of orations, each vying with the other in the +two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in hand, +and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather +than the audience to which it was delivered.</p> +<p>The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as +to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted +circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something +real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship +and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of +our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have +no oblique biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall.</p> +<p>At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the words, +“Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire.” +Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present +myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, +and to put myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results +of my studies. To begin with: the title did not suggest to me +anything in the least like the truth. I have been for some years +pretty familiar with the terms, “Mechanics’ Institutions,” +and “Literary Societies,” but they have, unfortunately, +become too often associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, +lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits +a new house much too large for it, which is seldom paid for, and which +takes the name of the mechanics most grievously in vain, for I have +usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place together.</p> +<p>I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this +title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, “Here’s the +old story.” But the perusal of a very few lines of my book +soon gave me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; +in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the +old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. +I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central +head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics’ Institutions +and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no more than five +shillings to each society; suggesting to all how they can best communicate +with and profit by the fountain-head and one another; keeping their +best aims steadily before them; advising them how those aims can be +best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise +easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, +but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called “Free Itinerating +Libraries.” I learned that these books are constantly making +the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being +read with inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling +people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. +These and other like facts lead me to consider the immense importance +of the fact, that no little cluster of working men’s cottages +can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running +stream which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its educational +friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its +thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into existence.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has +brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly +do for those working men what this local association does. No +central association at a distance could possibly understand them as +this local association does. No central association at a distance +could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication one +with another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley +seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge, +in that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet +you, that you may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition +to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly +a feature, and a most important feature, of this society.</p> +<p>On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest men, +however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and maintaining +their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination +must materially diminish their cost, which is in time a vital consideration; +and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to the success +of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the +results of experience and of reflection.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable +history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he +has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent +society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising +members of the local society to submit themselves to voluntary examination +in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes +the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates +to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit +which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors +in the list of these examinations are now among us, and these little +marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently +of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose.</p> +<p>I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which have +comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal +coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language +- in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. +I felt most devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that they had not +been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they +had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself to-night. +And yet it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these +examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in +a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence, has been a constant +wrestle with</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Those twin gaolers of the daring heart -<br />Low birth and +iron fortune.” <a name="citation13"></a><a href="#footnote13">{13}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these +questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business +of whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, the business +of whose life is with tools and with machinery.</p> +<p>Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from +among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers +who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous +examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work +from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have +walked eight miles a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes +in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys +from Bollington, who begin life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence +a-week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery +at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution +in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor +boys will appear before you to-night, to take the second-class prize +in chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of +age, who took a third-class certificate last year at the hands of Lord +Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times +as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew +little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learned +all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. +There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard +all day, who walks six miles a-night, three nights a-week, to attend +the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a +moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he was working twelve hours +a day before the furnace, got up at four o’clock in the morning +to learn drawing. “The thought of my lads,” he writes +in his modest account of himself, “in their peaceful slumbers +above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should +never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they +came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which +have made our country, England, pre-eminent in the world’s history.” +There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who +is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of +an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which +he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution +never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to +it with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid +and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The +drawing-classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; +and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honours +of to-night. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it +was written of another of his trade, by the American poet:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,<br />Onward through life he +goes;<br />Each morning sees some task begun,<br />Each evening sees +its clause.<br />Something attempted, something done,<br />Has earn’d +a night’s repose.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local +societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from +amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable man, +whose history I have read with feelings that I could not adequately +express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears +me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he +dropped from fatigue: who began to teach himself as soon as he could +earn five shillings a-week: who is now a botanist, acquainted with every +production of the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and has made +and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed +the birds: who is now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in some +respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also +preserved and collected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: who +is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution, and +who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill.</p> +<p>So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and +many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary +test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up +the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, +with equal gravity, describes his occupation as “nursing a little +child.” Nor are these things confined to the men. +The women employed in factories, milliners’ work, and domestic +service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided +determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston +in particular, have so honourably distinguished themselves, and shown +in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science +of household management and household economy, that if I were a working +bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, and if I had not cast my eye or +set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up +at four o’clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder +himself, and should go to Preston in search of a wife.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily +occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the working +of this Association, than any number of speakers could possibly present +to you. Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people +is the Association’s best and most effective triumph in the present +and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future. +As its temporary mouth-piece, I would beg to say to that portion of +the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can +never hold itself apart from them; - can never set itself above them; +that their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; +and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. +In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that +nothing will ever be further from this Association’s mind than +the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the +certificates that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy +with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for +the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. +The prizes are money prizes, simply because the Institution does not +presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, +know best how to make a little money serviceable - because it would +be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for them, +and because it knows it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect +clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and, above all, perfect +independence.</p> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective +audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold +which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages +of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty +with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own +respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall +say, nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, +both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. +For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the +shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot, which was once +always saying, without knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge +was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together +the mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from +an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been - as my +friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it - “blasted into space;” +and there, as to this world, is an end of them.</p> +<p>So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the +first place, let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual +improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, +through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, +whom you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through +the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring +themselves in this matter with a gallantry and generosity deserving +of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of +my own personal heart, which is always very near to it in this connexion. +Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose +workings we can tell of in figures, surrounded by machines that can +be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge +which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope - do +not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect +the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as a part of +the great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or +woman into which it changes, always remember those fables tenderly. +Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, +and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places +about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co-exist with +the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is +always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. +The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful +and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, +and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom +of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition +to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of +men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that +He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, +and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our +race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers +of it must know, has a very limited power indeed, when it informs the +head alone; but when it informs the head and the heart too, it has a +power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the +universe.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle Hotel, +on the occasion of the presentation to Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold +watch, as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his Christmas Carol, +given in December of the previous year, in aid of the funds of the Coventry +Institute. The chair was taken by C. W. Hoskyns, Esq. Mr. +Dickens ackowledged the testimonial in the following words:]</p> +<p>Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-chairman, and Gentlemen, - I hope your minds +will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules +of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly +did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such +circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of your +kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain +constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, +so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest, and so true. Furthermore, +your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good +sense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt +at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence.</p> +<p>Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how +deeply I feel your kindness. This watch, with which you have presented +me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, +and in my wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my +side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can +assure you that after this night the object of those labours will not +less than before be to uphold the right and to do good. And when +I have done with time and its measurement, this watch shall belong to +my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to +serve their country in various ways, or to elect into what distant regions +they shall roam, it is not only possible, but probable, that this little +voice will be heard scores of years hence, who knows? in some yet unfounded +city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry +Street, Japan.</p> +<p>Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts, +I can assure you that the memory of to-night, and of your picturesque +and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never +more hear the lightest mention of the name of Coventry without having +inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr. +Dickens said:]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions with regard +to farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay +farm; but, however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm +may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer, +- and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturist which I have +to propose.</p> +<p>In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, +for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it <i>is</i>, exceedingly +important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; +but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and +I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that +this very rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and +that, we shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable +crop of wisdom, which must spring up when ever he is sown, I take leave +to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in +which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At a Dinner of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, +the following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the +chair.-]</p> +<p>Seven or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever +being called upon to fill the chair at an anniversary festival of the +Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest +reference to such an occasion, I selected the administration of that +Charity as the model on which I desired that another should be reformed, +both as regarded the mode in which the relief was afforded, and the +singular economy with which its funds were administered. As a +proof of the latter quality during the past year, the cost of distributing +£1,126 among the recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted +to little more than £100, inclusive of all office charges and +expenses. The experience and knowledge of those entrusted with +the management of the funds are a guarantee that the last available +farthing of the funds will be distributed among proper and deserving +recipients. Claiming, on my part, to be related in some degree +to the profession of an artist, I disdain to stoop to ask for charity, +in the ordinary acceptation of the term, on behalf of the Artists. +In its broader and higher signification of generous confidence, lasting +trustfulness, love and confiding belief, I very readily associate that +cardinal virtue with art. I decline to present the artist to the +notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as a strange, unaccountable, +moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly in the street of life to be +helped over the road by the crossing-sweeper; on the contrary, I present +the artist as a reasonable creature, a sensible gentleman, and as one +well acquainted with the value of his time, and that of other people, +as if he were in the habit of going on high ‘Change every day. +The Artist whom I wish to present to the notice of the Meeting is one +to whom the perfect enjoyment of the five senses is essential to every +achievement of his life. He can gain no wealth nor fame by buying +something which he never touched, and selling it to another who would +also never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike out for himself +every spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps consumed him. +He must win the battle of life with his own hand, and with his own eyes, +and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, non-commissioned +officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms, infantry, cavalry, +all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I ask help for the +artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a cripple from his birth, +but I ask it as part payment of a great debt which all sensible and +civilised creatures owe to art, as a mark of respect to art, as a decoration +- not as a badge - as a remembrance of what this land, or any land, +would be without art, and as the token of an appreciation of the works +of the most successful artists of this country. With respect to +the society of which I am the advocate, I am gratified that it is so +liberally supported by the most distinguished artists, and that it has +the confidence of men who occupy the highest rank as artists, above +the reach of reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, +and whose support is above all price. Artists who have obtained +wide-world reputation know well that many deserving and persevering +men, or their widows and orphans, have received help from this fund, +and some of the artists who have received this help are now enrolled +among the subscribers to the Institution.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 20, 1862.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as +chairman, at the annual Festival of the Newsvendors’ and Provident +Institution, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern on the above date.]</p> +<p>When I had the honour of being asked to preside last year, I was +prevented by indisposition, and I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, +to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellent +speech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speech with +considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong misgiving +that I had better have presided last year with neuralgia in my face +and my subject in my head, rather than preside this year with my neuralgia +all gone and my subject anticipated. Therefore, I wish to preface +the toast this evening by making the managers of this Institution one +very solemn and repentant promise, and it is, if ever I find myself +obliged to provide a substitute again, they may rely upon my sending +the most speechless man of my acquaintance.</p> +<p>The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of the +universality of the newsman’s calling. Nothing, I think, +is left for me but to imagine the newsman’s burden itself, to +unfold one of those wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, +and to take a bird’s-eye view of its general character and contents. +So, if you please, choosing my own time - though the newsman cannot +choose his time, for he must be equally active in winter or summer, +in sunshine or sleet, in light or darkness, early or late - but, choosing +my own time, I shall for two or three moments start off with the newsman +on a fine May morning, and take a view of the wonderful broadsheets +which every day he scatters broadcast over the country. Well, +the first thing that occurs to me following the newsman is, that every +day we are born, that every day we are married - some of us - and that +every day we are dead; consequently, the first thing the newsvendor’s +column informs me is, that Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been +married, and that Datkins is dead. But the most remarkable thing +I immediately discover in the next column, is that Atkins has grown +to be seventeen years old, and that he has run away; for, at last, my +eye lights on the fact that William A., who is seventeen years old, +is adjured immediately to return to his disconsolate parents, and everything +will be arranged to the satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid +he will never return, simply because, if he had meant to come back, +he would never have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious +character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is only to be expressed +by several disjointed letters, by several figures, and several stars; +and then I find the explanation in the intimation that the writer has +given his property over to his uncle, and that the elephant is on the +wing. Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious +friend, the newsman, I find there are great fleets of ships bound to +all parts of the earth, that they all want a little more stowage, a +little more cargo, that they have a few more berths to let, that they +have all the most spacious decks, that they are all built of teak, and +copper-bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience, and that +they are all A1 at Lloyds’, and anywhere else. Still glancing +over the shoulder of my friend the newsman, I find I am offered all +kinds of house-lodging, clerks, servants, and situations, which I can +possibly or impossibly want. I learn, to my intense gratification, +that I need never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile +bloom of my complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own +fault; that if I have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or +Turkish baths, I am told where to get them, and that, if I want an income +of seven pounds a-week, I may have it by sending half-a-crown in postage-stamps. +Then I look to the police intelligence, and I can discover that I may +bite off a human living nose cheaply, but if I take off the dead nose +of a pig or a calf from a shop-window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. +I also find that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of +killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little incident +will not affect the testimonials to my character, but that I shall be +described as a most amiable young man, and as, above all things, remarkable +for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. +Then I turn my eye to the Fine Arts, and, under that head, I see that +a certain “J. O.” has most triumphantly exposed a certain +“J. O. B.,” which “J. O. B.” was remarkable +for this particular ugly feature, that I was requested to deprive myself +of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that time it was +to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for my courtesy +in having my picture most impertinently covered with a wet blanket. +To sum up the results of a glance over my newsman’s shoulder, +it gives a comprehensive knowledge of what is going on over the continent +of Europe, and also of what is going on over the continent of America, +to say nothing of such little geographical regions as India and China.</p> +<p>Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s shoulders +from the whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, that +most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on steamboats, +railway stations, and at every turn. His profits are small, he +has a great amount of anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal +wear and tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, +and he is looked for with pleasurable excitement every day, except when +he lends the paper for an hour, and when he is punctual in calling for +it, which is sometimes very painful. I think the lesson we can +learn from our newsman is some new illustration of the uncertainty of +life, some illustration of its vicissitudes and fluctuations. +Mindful of this permanent lesson, some members of the trade originated +this society, which affords them assistance in time of sickness and +indigence. The subscription is infinitesimal. It amounts +annually to five shillings. Looking at the returns before me, +the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but it has only been +slow for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The pensions +granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded capital, and, +therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as the Bank. It +is stated that there are several newsvendors who are not members of +this society; but that is true in all institutions which have come under +my experience. The persons who are most likely to stand in need +of the benefits which an institution confers, are usually the persons +to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 11, 1864.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at +a public meeting, for the purpose of founding the Shakespeare Schools, +in connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the following +address:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen - Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, +it is the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be +very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after +him. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to +be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit +and hear speeches with exemplary attention than to stand up to make +them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your +business official, to as plain and as short an exposition as I can possibly +give you of the reasons why we come together.</p> +<p>First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together +in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do with any +commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that +mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by +no means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration +were a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still +be pursuing precisely the same object, though we should not pursue it +under precisely the same circumstances. The facts are these: There +is, as you know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal +Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for +veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which +dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the establishment +of schools in connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this +feature of the scheme, when it was explained to him, was specially interesting +to his Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence +of the desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; +to found educational institutions for the rising generation, as well +as to establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or +at least having their faces turned towards the setting sun. The +leading members of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the +more pressing necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction +of their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, +good-will, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in +their efforts to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully +aided by the respected gentleman <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14">{14}</a> +under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half +as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always am to see him here. +With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers +and sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this present time +all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, completely +furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of them inhabited. +The central hall of the College is built, the grounds are beautifully +planned and laid out, and the estate has become the nucleus of a prosperous +neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in +his mind how he should next proceed towards the establishment of the +schools, when, this Tercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred +to him to represent to the National Shakespeare Committee their just +and reasonable claim to participate in the results of any subscription +for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the committee +that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare’s +own art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument +worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that +it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good +sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim the +committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to understand +that if the committee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenary +celebration had never been attempted, those schools, as a design anterior +to both, would still have solicited public support.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, +to find a new self-supporting public school; with this additional feature, +that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes +two separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built +on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first +no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important +head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting +public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is +a large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property +in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project +is a project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools +are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their +schools the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the followers +of Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in them. With this +view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, +say, for forty foundation scholars - say, twenty girls and twenty boys +- who shall always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall +always be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. +This school, you will understand, is to be equal to the best existing +public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive +education, and it is to address the whole great middle class at least +as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as any existing public school.</p> +<p>Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There +are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at nearly all our +old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our +standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanising +art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time +be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find +its account in it. Taking this view of the case - and I cannot +be satisfied to take any lower one - I cannot make a sorry face about +“the poor player.” I think it is a term very much +misused and very little understood - being, I venture to say, appropriated +in a wrong sense by players themselves. Therefore, ladies and +gentlemen, I can only present the player to you exceptionally in this +wise - that he follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation +very rarely affording the means of accumulating money - that that vocation +must, from the nature of things, have in it many undistinguished men +and women to one distinguished one - that it is not a vocation the exerciser +of which can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn +every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid of his own face, +his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own life and spirits; +and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to render +him some little help in opening for his children their paths through +life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not often found, +except under the pressure of necessity, or where there is strong hereditary +talent - which is always an exceptional case - that the children of +actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need +not in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they would +help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly +the reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction +and usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in +that market’s over-rich superabundance.</p> +<p>This project has received the support of the head of the most popular +of our English public schools. On the committee stands the name +of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You +justly admire this liberal spirit, and your admiration - which I cordially +share - brings me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there +is not in England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. +It has been called a little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is +so, with the exception of one of life’s worst foibles - for, as +far as I know, nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence +of servility to mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a +public school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his +personal qualities make him. We may differ about the curriculum +and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit +preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there can be no kind of +question. It has happened in these later times that objection +has been made to children of dramatic artists in certain little snivelling +private schools - but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold +that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious +liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little hole-and-corner +place of education for their children exclusively, but in addressing +the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to them to come and +join them, the actors, on their own property, in a public school, in +a part of the country where no such advantage is now to be found.</p> +<p>I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. +I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like +the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed +condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and +grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think +I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution +that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy +with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall +lay a strong foundation of these schools to-day, I will call, as the +mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 9, 1865.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of +the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in +proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - Dr. Johnson’s experience of that club, +the members of which have travelled over one another’s minds in +every direction, is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual +president of a society like this. Having on previous occasions +said everything about it that he could possibly find to say, he is again +produced, with the same awful formalities, to say everything about it +that he cannot possibly find to say. It struck me, when Dr. F. +Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of such +an ill-starred president is very like that of the stag at Epping Forest +on Easter Monday. That unfortunate animal when he is uncarted +at the spot where the meet takes place, generally makes a point, I am +told, of making away at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole +field, to the yard where he lives, and there subsides into a quiet and +inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out to be again followed +by exactly the same field, under exactly the same circumstances, next +Easter Monday.</p> +<p>The difficulties of the situation - and here I mean the president +and not the stag - are greatly increased in such an instance as this +by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending +solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me - for I have carefully +considered the point - it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical +nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so called, whose +yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very +likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If its +funds were lavished in patronage and show, instead of being honestly +expended in providing small annuities for hard-working people who have +themselves contributed to its funds - if its management were intrusted +to people who could by no possibility know anything about it, instead +of being invested in plain, business, practical hands - if it hoarded +when it ought to spend - if it got by cringing and fawning what it never +deserved, I might possibly impress you very much by my indignation. +If its managers could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in +a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds +- or by “Tom,” - if its treasurer had run away with the +money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. +But I have no such chance. Just as a nation is happy whose records +are barren, so is a society fortunate that has no history - and its +president unfortunate. I can only assure you that this society +continues its plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure +you that it does a great deal of good at a very small cost, and that +the objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful working +servants of the public - sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, +in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street-corners, +at every railway train, at every steam-boat; through the agency of every +establishment and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded +as master or as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, +while their trouble and responsibility are very great.</p> +<p>The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that wonderful +engine - the newspaper press. Still I think we all know very well +that they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes +is to a good water supply. Just as a goodly store of water at +Watford would be a tantalization to thirsty London if it were not brought +into town for its use, so any amount of news accumulated at Printing-house +Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, would be if there were no skill +and enterprise engaged in its dissemination.</p> +<p>We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every-day life, that +“We never know the value of anything until we lose it.” +Let us try the newsvendors by the test. A few years ago we discovered +one morning that there was a strike among the cab-drivers. Now, +let us imagine a strike of newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting +in vain for the newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of +men dying to know the shipping news, the commercial news, the foreign +news, the legal news, the criminal news, the dramatic news. Imagine +the paralysis on all the provincial exchanges; the silence and desertion +of all the newsmen’s exchanges in London. Imagine the circulation +of the blood of the nation and of the country standing still, - the +clock of the world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter - whom +I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side of Mrs. +Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell and wires to +the head of his bed, and bells at each ear - think how even he would +click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they would +become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up +the threads and stitches of the electric needle, and scatter them over +the land.</p> +<p>It is curious to consider - and the thought occurred to me this day, +when I was out for a stroll pondering over the duties of this evening, +which even then were looming in the distance, but not quite so far off +as I could wish - I found it very curious to consider that though the +newsman must be allowed to be a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, +or Fame, or what-not conventional messenger from the clouds, and although +we must allow that he is of this earth, and has a good deal of it on +his boots, still that he has two very remarkable characteristics, to +which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claim. +One is that he is always the messenger of civilization; the other that +he is at least equally so - not only in what he brings, but in what +he ceases to bring. Thus the time was, and not so many years ago +either, when the newsman constantly brought home to our doors - though +I am afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened - the most +terrific accounts of murders, of our fellow-creatures being publicly +put to death for what we now call trivial offences, in the very heart +of London, regularly every Monday morning. At the same time the +newsman regularly brought to us the infliction of other punishments, +which were demoralising to the innocent part of the community, while +they did not operate as punishments in deterring offenders from the +perpetration of crimes. In those same days, also, the newsman +brought to us daily accounts of a regularly accepted and received system +of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, littering them down on +straw, starving them on bread and water, damaging their clothes, and +making periodical exhibitions of them at a small charge; and that on +a Sunday one of our public resorts was a kind of demoniacal zoological +gardens. They brought us accounts at the same time of some damage +done to the machinery which was destined to supply the operative classes +with employment. In the same time they brought us accounts of +riots for bread, which were constantly occurring, and undermining society +and the state; of the most terrible explosions of class against class, +and of the habitual employment of spies for the discovery - if not for +the origination - of plots, in which both sides found in those days +some relief. In the same time the same newsmen were apprising +us of a state of society all around us in which the grossest sensuality +and intemperance were the rule; and not as now, when the ignorant, the +wicked, and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious exceptions - a +state of society in which the professional bully was rampant, and when +deadly duels were daily fought for the most absurd and disgraceful causes. +All this the newsman has ceased to tell us of. This state of society +has discontinued in England for ever; and when we remember the undoubted +truth, that the change could never have been effected without the aid +of the load which the newsman carries, surely it is not very romantic +to express the hope on his behalf that the public will show to him some +little token of the sympathetic remembrance which we are all of us glad +to bestow on the bearers of happy tidings - the harbingers of good news.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am coming +to a conclusion; for that conclusion I have a precedent. You all +of you know how pleased you are on your return from a morning’s +walk to learn that the collector has called. Well, I am the collector +for this district, and I hope you will bear in mind that I have respectfully +called. Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presented +myself, I need only say technically two things. First, that its +annuities are granted out of its funded capital, and therefore it is +safe as the Bank; and, secondly, that they are attainable by such a +slight exercise of prudence and fore-thought, that a payment of 25<i>s</i>. +extending over a period of five years, entitles a subscriber - if a +male - to an annuity of £16 a-year, and a female to £12 +a-year. Now, bear in mind that this is an institution on behalf +of which the collector has called, leaving behind his assurance that +what you can give to one of the most faithful of your servants shall +be well bestowed and faithfully applied to the purposes to which you +intend them, and to those purposes alone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND. - LONDON, MAY 20, 1865.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the second annual dinner of the Institution, held at the Freemasons’ +Tavern, on Saturday, the 20th May, 1865, the following speech was delivered +by the chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in proposing the toast of the +evening:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - When a young child is produced after dinner +to be shown to a circle of admiring relations and friends, it may generally +be observed that their conversation - I suppose in an instinctive remembrance +of the uncertainty of infant life - takes a retrospective turn. +As how much the child has grown since the last dinner; what a remarkably +fine child it is, to have been born only two or three years ago, how +much stronger it looks now than before it had the measles, and so forth. +When a young institution is produced after dinner, there is not the +same uncertainty or delicacy as in the case of the child, and it may +be confidently predicted of it that if it deserve to live it will surely +live, and that if it deserve to die it will surely die. The proof +of desert in such a case as this must be mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, +in what the society means to do with its money; secondly, in the extent +to which it is supported by the class with whom it originated, and for +whose benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in the power of its hold +upon the public. I add this lastly, because no such institution +that ever I heard of ever yet dreamed of existing apart from the public, +or ever yet considered it a degradation to accept the public support.</p> +<p>Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its money +is to grant relief to members in want or distress, and to the widows, +families, parents, or other near relatives of deceased members in right +of a moderate provident annual subscription - commutable, I observe, +for a moderate provident life subscription - and its members comprise +the whole paid class of literary contributors to the press of the United +Kingdom, and every class of reporters. The number of its members +at this time last year was something below 100. At the present +time it is somewhat above 170, not including 30 members of the press +who are regular subscribers, but have not as yet qualified as regular +members. This number is steadily on the increase, not only as +regards the metropolitan press, but also as regards the provincial throughout +the country. I have observed within these few days that many members +of the press at Manchester have lately at a meeting expressed a strong +brotherly interest in this Institution, and a great desire to extend +its operations, and to strengthen its hands, provided that something +in the independent nature of life assurance and the purchase of deferred +annuities could be introduced into its details, and always assuming +that in it the metropolis and the provinces stand on perfectly equal +ground. This appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that +I can hardly have a doubt of a response on the part of the managers, +or of the beneficial and harmonious results. It only remains to +add, on this head of desert, the agreeable circumstance that out of +all the money collected in aid of the society during the last year more +than one-third came exclusively from the press.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim - the last +point of desert - the hold upon the public - I think I may say that +probably not one single individual in this great company has failed +to-day to see a newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something derived +from a newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her yesterday. +Of all those restless crowds that have this day thronged the streets +of this enormous city, the same may be said as the general gigantic +rule. It may be said almost equally, of the brightest and the +dullest, the largest and the least provincial town in the empire; and +this, observe, not only as to the active, the industrious, and the healthy +among the population, but also to the bedridden, the idle, the blind, +and the deaf and dumb. Now, if the men who provide this all-pervading +presence, this wonderful, ubiquitous newspaper, with every description +of intelligence on every subject of human interest, collected with immense +pains and immense patience, often by the exercise of a laboriously-acquired +faculty united to a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the night, +at the sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from the mental +strain) by the constant overtasking of the two most delicate of the +senses, sight and hearing - I say, if the men who, through the newspapers, +from day to day, or from night to night, or from week to week, furnish +the public with so much to remember, have not a righteous claim to be +remembered by the public in return, then I declare before God I know +no working class of the community who have.</p> +<p>It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly +as this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the extraordinary combination +of remarkable qualities involved in the production of any newspaper. +But assuming the majority of this associated body to be composed of +reporters, because reporters, of one kind or other, compose the majority +of the literary staff of almost every newspaper that is not a compilation, +I would venture to remind you, if I delicately may, in the august presence +of members of Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to the reporters +if it were only for their skill in the two great sciences of condensation +and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an Imperial +Parliament, however popularly constituted, under however glorious a +constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr. Johnson, +in one of his violent assertions, declared that “the man who was +afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir.” By no means +binding myself to this opinion - though admitting that the man who is +afraid of a newspaper will generally be found to be rather something +like it, I must still freely own that I should approach my Parliamentary +debate with infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully served +up for my breakfast. Ever since the time when the old man and +his son took their donkey home, which were the old Greek days, I believe, +and probably ever since the time when the donkey went into the ark - +perhaps he did not like his accommodation there - but certainly from +that time downwards, he has objected to go in any direction required +of him - from the remotest periods it has been found impossible to please +everybody.</p> +<p>I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution +has been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freëst +discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour but +what it can win, it has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to urge against +objection. No institution conceived in perfect honesty and good +faith has a right to object to being questioned to any extent, and any +institution so based must be in the end the better for it. Moreover, +that this society has been questioned in quarters deserving of the most +respectful attention I take to be an indisputable fact. Now, I +for one have given that respectful attention, and I have come out of +the discussion to where you see me. The whole circle of the arts +is pervaded by institutions between which and this I can descry no difference. +The painters’ art has four or five such institutions. The +musicians’ art, so generously and charmingly represented here, +has likewise several such institutions. In my own art there is +one, concerning the details of which my noble friend the president of +the society and myself have torn each other’s hair to a considerable +extent, and which I would, if I could, assimilate more nearly to this. +In the dramatic art there are four, and I never yet heard of any objection +to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases of some famous actors +of large gains, who having through the whole period of their successes +positively refused to establish a right in them, became, in their old +age and decline, repentant suppliants for their bounty. Is it +urged against this particular Institution that it is objectionable because +a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might report a subscribing M.P. +in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in little? Apart from the +sweeping nature of this charge, which, it is to be observed, lays the +unfortunate member and the unfortunate reporter under pretty much the +same suspicion - apart from this consideration, I reply that it is notorious +in all newspaper offices that every such man is reported according to +the position he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force +and weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to be +among the members of this society one so very foolish to his brethren, +and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally to abuse his trust, +I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with journalism, whether +they believe it possible that any newspaper so ill-conducted as to fail +instantly to detect him could possibly exist as a thriving enterprise +for one single twelvemonth? No, ladies and gentlemen, the blundering +stupidity of such an offence would have no chance against the acute +sagacity of newspaper editors. But I will go further, and submit +to you that its commission, if it be to be dreaded at all, is far more +likely on the part of some recreant camp-follower of a scattered, disunited, +and half-recognized profession, than when there is a public opinion +established in it, by the union of all classes of its members for the +common good: the tendency of which union must in the nature of things +be to raise the lower members of the press towards the higher, and never +to bring the higher members to the lower level.</p> +<p>I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing words that I feel +a desire to say in remembrance of some circumstances, rather special, +attending my present occupation of this chair, to give those words something +of a personal tone. I am not here advocating the case of a mere +ordinary client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold +a brief to-night for my brothers. I went into the gallery of the +House of Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, +and I left it - I can hardly believe the inexorable truth - nigh thirty +years ago. I have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances +of which many of my brethren at home in England here, many of my modern +successors, can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed +for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches +in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which +would have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the +palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and +four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the +night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The +very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle yard there +to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once +“took,” as we used to call it, an election speech of my +noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained +by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such +a pelting rain, that I remember two goodnatured colleagues, who chanced +to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my notebook, after +the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. +I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old +gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing +to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used +to be huddled together like so many sheep - kept in waiting, say, until +the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning home from excited +political meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, I +do verily believe I have been upset in almost every description of vehicle +known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated on miry +by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, +in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken postboys, +and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten +compliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch +from the broadest of hearts I ever knew.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an assurance +to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. +The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its +exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning +of hand or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained +as that I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the +worse from long disuse. To this present year of my life, when +I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon +does occur - I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally +following the speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can +believe me, I even find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an +imaginary note of it all. Accept these little truths as a confirmation +of what I know; as a confirmation of my undying interest in this old +calling. Accept them as a proof that my feeling for the location +of my youth is not a sentiment taken up to-night to be thrown away to-morrow +- but is a faithful sympathy which is a part of myself. I verily +believe - I am sure - that if I had never quitted my old calling I should +have been foremost and zealous in the interests of this Institution, +believing it to be a sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies +and gentlemen, I am to propose to you to drink “Prosperity to +the Newspaper Press Fund,” with which toast I will connect, as +to its acknowledgment, a name that has shed new brilliancy on even the +foremost newspaper in the world - the illustrious name of Mr. Russell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date the members of the “Guild of Literature +and Art” proceeded to the neighbourhood of Stevenage, near the +magnificent seat of the President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses +built in the Gothic style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. +After their survey, the party drove to Knebworth to partake of the hospitality +of Lord Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of the guests, proposed +the health of the host in the following words:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - It was said by a very sagacious person, whose +authority I am sure my friend of many years will not impugn, seeing +that he was named Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and philosopher +of Paul Clifford - it was said by that remarkable man, “Life is +short, and why should speeches be long?” An aphorism so +sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in the circumstances +in which we are placed, with this delicious weather and such charming +gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on the present occasion; +and the rather so because the speech of my friend was exhaustive of +the subject, as his speeches always are, though not in the least exhaustive +of his audience. In thanking him for the toast which he has done +us the honour to propose, allow me to correct an error into which he +has fallen. Allow me to state that these houses never could have +been built but for his zealous and valuable co-operation, and also that +the pleasant labour out of which they have arisen would have lost one +of its greatest charms and strongest impulses, if it had lost his ever +ready sympathy with that class in which he has risen to the foremost +rank, and of which he is the brightest ornament.</p> +<p>Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say, +on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we shall +invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be placed under +any social disadvantage. They will be invited to occupy them as +artists, receiving them as a mark of the high respect in which they +are held by their fellow-workers. As artists I hope they will +often exercise their calling within those walls for the general advantage; +and they will always claim, on equal terms, the hospitality of their +generous neighbour.</p> +<p>Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelings of my brothers +and sisters in literature in proposing “Health, long life, and +prosperity to our distinguished host.” Ladies and gentlemen, +you know very well that when the health, life, and beauty now overflowing +these halls shall have fled, crowds of people will come to see the place +where he lived and wrote. Setting aside the orator and statesman +- for happily we know no party here but this agreeable party - setting +aside all, this you know very well, that this is the home of a very +great man whose connexion with Hertfordshire every other county in England +will envy for many long years to come. You know that when this +hall is dullest and emptiest you can make it when you please brightest +and fullest by peopling it with the creations of his brilliant fancy. +Let us all wish together that they may be many more - for the more they +are the better it will be, and, as he always excels himself, the better +they will be. I ask you to listen to their praises and not to +mine, and to let them, not me, propose his health.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as Chairman at the annual +dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Fund, at Willis’s +Rooms, where he made the following speech:]</p> +<p>Ladies, before I couple you with the gentlemen, which will be at +least proper to the inscription over my head (St. Valentine’s +day) - before I do so, allow me, on behalf of my grateful sex here represented, +to thank you for the great pleasure and interest with which your gracious +presence at these festivals never fails to inspire us. There is +no English custom which is so manifestly a relic of savage life as that +custom which usually excludes you from participation in similar gatherings. +And although the crime carries its own heavy punishment along with it, +in respect that it divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornament +and of its most fascinating charm, still the offence is none the less +to be severely reprehended on every possible occasion, as outraging +equally nature and art. I believe that as little is known of the +saint whose name is written here as can well be known of any saint or +sinner. We, your loyal servants, are deeply thankful to him for +having somehow gained possession of one day in the year - for having, +as no doubt he has, arranged the almanac for 1866 - expressly to delight +us with the enchanting fiction that we have some tender proprietorship +in you which we should scarcely dare to claim on a less auspicious occasion. +Ladies, the utmost devotion sanctioned by the saint we beg to lay at +your feet, and any little innocent privileges to which we may be entitled +by the same authority we beg respectfully but firmly to claim at your +hands.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to inform you that I +am going to propose “Prosperity to the Dramatic, Musical, and +Equestrian Sick Fund Association,” and, further, that I should +be going to ask you actively to promote that prosperity by liberally +contributing to its funds, if that task were not reserved for a much +more persuasive speaker. But I rest the strong claim of the society +for its useful existence and its truly charitable functions on a very +few words, though, as well as I can recollect, upon something like six +grounds. First, it relieves the sick; secondly, it buries the +dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of the profession to journey +to accept new engagements whenever they find themselves stranded in +some remote, inhospitable place, or when, from other circumstances, +they find themselves perfectly crippled as to locomotion for want of +money; fourthly, it often finds such engagements for them by acting +as their honest, disinterested agent; fifthly, it is its principle to +act humanely upon the instant, and never, as is too often the case within +my experience, to beat about the bush till the bush is withered and +dead; lastly, the society is not in the least degree exclusive, but +takes under its comprehensive care the whole range of the theatre and +the concert-room, from the manager in his room of state, or in his caravan, +or at the drum-head - down to the theatrical housekeeper, who is usually +to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, or down to the hall porter, +who passes his life in a thorough draught - and, to the best of my observation, +in perpetually interrupted endeavours to eat something with a knife +and fork out of a basin, by a dusty fire, in that extraordinary little +gritty room, upon which the sun never shines, and on the portals of +which are inscribed the magic words, “stage-door.”</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers its benefits +sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by way of gift; sometimes by way +of assurance at very low premiums; sometimes to members, oftener to +non-members; always expressly, remember, through the hands of a secretary +or committee well acquainted with the wants of the applicants, and thoroughly +versed, if not by hard experience at least by sympathy, in the calamities +and uncertainties incidental to the general calling. One must +know something of the general calling to know what those afflictions +are. A lady who had been upon the stage from her earliest childhood +till she was a blooming woman, and who came from a long line of provincial +actors and actresses, once said to me when she was happily married; +when she was rich, beloved, courted; when she was mistress of a fine +house - once said to me at the head of her own table, surrounded by +distinguished guests of every degree, “Oh, but I have never forgotten +the hard time when I was on the stage, and when my baby brother died, +and when my poor mother and I brought the little baby from Ireland to +England, and acted three nights in England, as we had acted three nights +in Ireland, with the pretty creature lying upon the only bed in our +lodging before we got the money to pay for its funeral.”</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to this hour; but, +happily, at this day and in this hour this association has arisen to +be the timely friend of such great distress.</p> +<p>It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fall into these +straits. Struggling artists must necessarily change from place +to place, and thus it frequently happens that they become, as it were, +strangers in every place, and very slight circumstances - a passing +illness, the sickness of the husband, wife, or child, a serious town, +an anathematising expounder of the gospel of gentleness and forbearance +- any one of these causes may often in a few hours wreck them upon a +rock in the barren ocean; and then, happily, this society, with the +swift alacrity of the life-boat, dashes to the rescue, and takes them +off. Looking just now over the last report issued by this society, +and confining my scrutiny to the head of illness alone, I find that +in one year, I think, 672 days of sickness had been assuaged by its +means. In nine years, which then formed the term of its existence, +as many as 5,500 and odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and +odd days of sickness, this is a very serious sum, but add the nights! +Add the nights - those long, dreary hours in the twenty-four when the +shadow of death is darkest, when despondency is strongest, and when +hope is weakest, before you gauge the good that is done by this institution, +and before you gauge the good that really will be done by every shilling +that you bestow here to-night. Add, more than all, that the improvidence, +the recklessness of the general multitude of poor members of this profession, +I should say is a cruel, conventional fable. Add that there is +no class of society the members of which so well help themselves, or +so well help each other. Not in the whole grand chapters of Westminster +Abbey and York Minster, not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange, +not in the whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns +of Court, not in the College of Physicians, not in the College of Surgeons, +can there possibly be found more remarkable instances of uncomplaining +poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of the generous remembrance +of the claims of kindred and professional brotherhood, than will certainly +be found in the dingiest and dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid +theatre - even in the raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by +weather.</p> +<p>I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering actors +when I address them as one of their trustees at their General Fund dinner. +Believe me, I flatter nobody, unless it be sometimes myself; but, in +such a company as the present, I always feel it my manful duty to bear +my testimony to this fact - first, because it is opposed to a stupid, +unfeeling libel; secondly, because my doing so may afford some slight +encouragement to the persons who are unjustly depreciated; and lastly, +and most of all, because I know it is the truth.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what we professionally +call “ring down” on these remarks. If you, such members +of the general public as are here, will only think the great theatrical +curtain has really fallen and been taken up again for the night on that +dull, dark vault which many of us know so well; if you will only think +of the theatre or other place of entertainment as empty; if you will +only think of the “float,” or other gas-fittings, as extinguished; +if you will only think of the people who have beguiled you of an evening’s +care, whose little vanities and almost childish foibles are engendered +in their competing face to face with you for your favour - surely it +may be said their feelings are partly of your making, while their virtues +are all their own. If you will only do this, and follow them out +of that sham place into the real world, where it rains real rain, snows +real snow, and blows real wind; where people sustain themselves by real +money, which is much harder to get, much harder to make, and very much +harder to give away than the pieces of tobacco-pipe in property bags +- if you will only do this, and do it in a really kind, considerate +spirit, this society, then certain of the result of the night’s +proceedings, can ask no more. I beg to propose to you to drink +“Prosperity to the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick Fund +Association.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Mr. Dickens, in proposing the next toast, said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Gentlemen: as I addressed myself to the ladies last time, so I address +you this time, and I give you the delightful assurance that it is positively +my last appearance but one on the present occasion. A certain +Mr. Pepys, who was Secretary for the Admiralty in the days of Charles +II., who kept a diary well in shorthand, which he supposed no one could +read, and which consequently remains to this day the most honest diary +known to print - Mr. Pepys had two special and very strong likings, +the ladies and the theatres. But Mr. Pepys, whenever he committed +any slight act of remissness, or any little peccadillo which was utterly +and wholly untheatrical, used to comfort his conscience by recording +a vow that he would abstain from the theatres for a certain time. +In the first part of Mr. Pepys’ character I have no doubt we fully +agree with him; in the second I have no doubt we do not.</p> +<p>I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembrance of a passage +in his diary that I was reading the other night, from which it appears +that he was not only curious in plays, but curious in sermons; and that +one night when he happened to be walking past St. Dunstan’s Church, +he turned, went in, and heard what he calls “a very edifying discourse;” +during the delivery of which discourse, he notes in his diary - “I +stood by a pretty young maid, whom I did attempt to take by the hand.” +But he adds - “She would not; and I did perceive that she had +pins in her pocket with which to prick me if I should touch her again +- and was glad that I spied her design.” Afterwards, about +the close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. Pepys found himself near +another pretty, fair young maid, who would seem upon the whole to have +had no pins, and to have been more impressible.</p> +<p>Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest to you is, that +we have been this evening in St. James’s much more timid than +Mr. Pepys was in St. Dunstan’s, and that we have conducted ourselves +very much better. As a slight recompense to us for our highly +meritorious conduct, and as a little relief to our over-charged hearts, +I beg to propose that we devote this bumper to invoking a blessing on +the ladies. It is the privilege of this society annually to hear +a lady speak for her own sex. Who so competent to do this as Mrs. +Stirling? Surely one who has so gracefully and captivatingly, +with such an exquisite mixture of art, and fancy, and fidelity, represented +her own sex in innumerable charities, under an infinite variety of phases, +cannot fail to represent them well in her own character, especially +when it is, amidst her many triumphs, the most agreeable of all. +I beg to propose to you “The Ladies,” and I will couple +with that toast the name of Mrs. Stirling.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Annual Festival +of the Royal General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemasons’ +Tavern, in proposing the health of the Lord Mayor (Sir Benjamin Phillips), +who occupied the chair.]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in my childish days I remember to have had a vague but +profound admiration for a certain legendary person called the Lord Mayor’s +fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacity of +that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I really regarded +him with feelings approaching to absolute veneration, because my nurse +informed me on every gastronomic occasion that the Lord Mayor’s +fool liked everything that was good. You will agree with me, I +have no doubt, that if this discriminating jester had existed at the +present time he could not fail to have liked his master very much, seeing +that so good a Lord Mayor is very rarely to be found, and that a better +Lord Mayor could not possibly be.</p> +<p>You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about to propose to +you to drink the health of the right honourable gentleman in the chair. +As one of the Trustees of the General Theatrical Fund, I beg officially +to tender him my best thanks for lending the very powerful aid of his +presence, his influence, and his personal character to this very deserving +Institution. As his private friends we ventured to urge upon him +to do us this gracious act, and I beg to assure you that the perfect +simplicity, modesty, cordiality, and frankness with which he assented, +enhanced the gift one thousand fold. I think it must also be very +agreeable to a company like this to know that the President of the night +is not ceremoniously pretending, “positively for this night only,” +to have an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough +acquaintance with it, and that he has a living and discerning knowledge +of the merits of the great old actors. It is very pleasant to +me to remember that the Lord Mayor and I once beguiled the tedium of +a journey by exchanging our experiences upon this subject. I rather +prided myself on being something of an old stager, but I found the Lord +Mayor so thoroughly up in all the stock pieces, and so knowing and yet +so fresh about the merits of those who are most and best identified +with them, that I readily recognised in him what would be called in +fistic language, a very ugly customer - one, I assure you, by no means +to be settled by any novice not in thorough good theatrical training.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancy that when +the giants in Guildhall hear the clock strike one, they come down to +dinner. Similarly, when the City of London shall hear but one +single word in just disparagement of its present Lord Mayor, whether +as its enlightened chief magistrate, or as one of its merchants, or +as one of its true gentlemen, he will then descend from the high personal +place which he holds in the general honour and esteem. Until then +he will remain upon his pedestal, and my private opinion, between ourselves, +is that the giants will come down long before him.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the Lord Mayor +made his truly remarkable, and truly manly, and unaffected speech, I +could not but be struck by the odd reversal of the usual circumstances +at the Mansion House, which he presented to our view, for whereas it +is a very common thing for persons to be brought tremblingly before +the Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor presented himself as being brought tremblingly +before us. I hope that the result may hold still further, for +whereas it is a common thing for the Lord Mayor to say to a repentant +criminal who does not seem to have much harm in him, “let me never +see you here again,” so I would propose that we all with one accord +say to the Lord Mayor, “Let us by all means see you here again +on the first opportunity.” Gentlemen, I beg to propose to +you to drink, with all the honours, “The health of the right hon. +the Lord Mayor.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 7, 1866.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs dining together at +the London Tavern, on the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the +Nautilus Rowing Club, occupied the chair. The Speech that follows +was made in proposing “Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of London.” +Mr. Dickens said that:-]</p> +<p>He could not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the amateur +rowing clubs on the Thames were in the early days of his noviciate; +not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. He could +not get on in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous +creature called a “fireman waterman,” who wore an eminently +tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of which it might be +said that if it was less adapted for one thing than another, that thing +was fire. He recollected that this gentleman had on some former +day won a King’s prize wherry, and they used to go about in this +accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing all the hard work, while the +fireman drank all the beer. The river was very much clearer, freër, +and cleaner in those days than these; but he was persuaded that this +philosophical old boatman could no more have dreamt of seeing the spectacle +which had taken place on Saturday (the procession of the boats of the +Metropolitan Amateur Rowing Clubs), or of seeing these clubs matched +for skill and speed, than he (the Chairman) should dare to announce +through the usual authentic channels that he was to be heard of at the +bar below, and that he was perfectly prepared to accommodate Mr. James +Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, he could recollect that +he had turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River Thames with +an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some other Eton +boys, and that he could hold his own against them. More recently +still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxford he was supposed +to cover himself with honour, though he must admit that he found the +“locks” so picturesque as to require much examination for +the discovery of their beauty. But what he wanted to say was this, +that though his “fireman waterman” was one of the greatest +humbugs that ever existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy, +manly sport this was. Their waterman would bid them pull away, +and assure them that they were certain of winning in some race. +And here he would remark that aquatic sports never entailed a moment’s +cruelty, or a moment’s pain, upon any living creature. Rowing +men pursued recreation under circumstances which braced their muscles, +and cleared the cobwebs from their minds. He assured them that +he regarded such clubs as these as a “national blessing.” +They owed, it was true, a vast deal to steam power - as was sometimes +proved at matches on the Thames - but, at the same time, they were greatly +indebted to all that tended to keep up a healthy, manly tone. +He understood that there had been a committee selected for the purpose +of arranging a great amateur regatta, which was to take place off Putney +in the course of the season that was just begun. He could not +abstain from availing himself of this occasion to express a hope that +the committee would successfully carry on its labours to a triumphant +result, and that they should see upon the Thames, in the course of this +summer, such a brilliant sight as had never been seen there before. +To secure this there must be some hard work, skilful combinations, and +rather large subscriptions. But although the aggregate result +must be great, it by no means followed that it need be at all large +in its individual details.</p> +<p>[In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison between the +paying off or purification of the national debt and the purification +of the River Thames.]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, JUNE 5, 1867.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Ninth Anniversary +Festival of the Railway Benevolent Society, at Willis’s Rooms, +and in proposing the toast of the evening, made the following speech.]</p> +<p>Although we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly +fifty years the time when one of the first literary authorities of this +country insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train that the +Legisture might disastrously sanction being limited by Act of Parliament +to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, +and every evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly +to Ireland and to Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour; much +as it was objected in its time to vaccination, that it must have a tendency +to impart to human children something of the nature of the cow, whereas +I believe to this very time vaccinated children are found to be as easily +defined from calves as they ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening +influence on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform +was a contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened providentially-inflicted +pain, which would be a reason for your not rubbing your face if you +had the tooth-ache, or not rubbing your nose if it itched; so it was +evidently predicted that the railway system, even if anything so absurd +could be productive of any result, would infallibly throw half the nation +out of employment; whereas, you observe that the very cause and occasion +of our coming here together to-night is, apart from the various tributary +channels of occupation which it has opened out, that it has called into +existence a specially and directly employed population of upwards of +200,000 persons.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 +persons engaged upon the various railways of the United Kingdom cannot +be rich; and although their duties require great care and great exactness, +and although our lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands +of many of them, still, for the most of these places there will be always +great competition, because they are not posts which require skilled +workmen to hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high +where competition is great, and you also know very well that railway +directors, in the bargains they make, and the salaries which they pay, +have to deal with the money of the shareholders, to whom they are accountable. +Thus it necessarily happens that railway officers and servants are not +remunerated on the whole by any means splendidly, and that they cannot +hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet the ordinary +wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed that the general +hazards are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of their +avocations, exceptionally great, so very great, I find, as to be stateable, +on the authority of a parliamentary paper, by the very startling round +of figures, that whereas one railway traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers +is killed, one railway servant in every 2,000 is killed.</p> +<p>Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual prudential +and benevolent considerations, there came to be established among railway +officers and servants, nine years ago, the Railway Benevolent Association. +I may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years ago, that +this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the banns between +this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually +to do my duty the same as if it had never been done before, and to ask +whether there is any just cause or impediment why these two parties +- the institution and the public - should not be joined together in +holy charity. As I understand the society, its objects are five-fold +- first, to guarantee annuities which, it is always to be observed, +is paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that those annuities +may be secure and safe - annual pensions, varying from £10 to +£25, to distressed railway officers and servants incapacitated +by age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to guarantee small pensions +to distressed widows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; +fourthly, to provide temporary relief for all those classes till lasting +relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large for the purpose; +lastly, to induce railway officers and servants to assure their lives +in some well-established office by sub-dividing the payment of the premiums +into small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus +of £10 per cent. on the amount assured from the funds of the institution.</p> +<p>This is the society we are met to assist - simple, sympathetic, practical, +easy, sensible, unpretending. The number of its members is large, +and rapidly on the increase: they number 12,000; the amount of invested +capital is very nearly £15,000; it has done a world of good and +a world of work in these first nine years of its life; and yet I am +proud to say that the annual cost of the maintenance of the institution +is no more than £250. And now if you do not know all about +it in a small compass, either I do not know all about it myself, or +the fault must be in my “packing.”</p> +<p>One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to +what it wants. Well, it wants to do more good, and it cannot possibly +do more good until it has more money. It cannot safely, and therefore +it cannot honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until +it grows richer, and it cannot grow rich enough for its laudable purpose +by its own unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. +The means of these railway officers and servants are far too limited. +Even if they were helped to the utmost by the great railway companies, +their means would still be too limited; even if they were helped - and +I hope they shortly will be - by some of the great corporations of this +country, whom railways have done so much to enrich. These railway +officers and servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, +can no more do without the help of the great public, than the great +public, on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without them. +Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servants of the great +railways - who, in fact, are their servants, their ready, zealous, faithful, +hard-working servants - whether they have not established, whether they +do not every day establish, a reasonable claim to liberal remembrance.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a story once told +me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have a certain application. +My friend was an American sea-captain, and, therefore, it is quite unnecessary +to say his story was quite true. He was captain and part owner +of a large American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out, in +exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one beautiful +young lady, and ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen. Light +winds or dead calms prevailing, the voyage was slow. They had +made half their distance when the ten young gentlemen were all madly +in love with the beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to +her, and bloodshed among the rivals seemed imminent pending the young +lady’s decision. On this extremity the beautiful young lady +confided in my friend the captain, who gave her discreet advice. +He said: “If your affections are disengaged, take that one of +the young gentlemen whom you like the best and settle the question.” +To this the beautiful young lady made reply, “I cannot do that +because I like them all equally well.” My friend, who was +a man of resource, hit upon this ingenious expedient, said he, “To-morrow +morning at mid-day, when lunch is announced, do you plunge bodily overboard, +head foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to rescue you, and +take the one of the ten who rushes to your rescue, and then you can +afterwards have him.” The beautiful young lady highly approved, +and did accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine out of the +ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen plunged in after her; and +the tenth remained and shed tears, looking over the side of the vessel. +They were all picked up, and restored dripping to the deck. The +beautiful young lady upon seeing them said, “What am I to do? +See what a plight they are in. How can I possibly choose, because +every one of them is equally wet?” Then said my friend the +captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, “Take the dry one.” +I am sorry to say that she did so, and they lived happy ever afterwards.</p> +<p>Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse +my friend the captain’s anecdote, and I entreat the public in +looking about to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to +give each his hand with something in it, and not award a dry hand to +the industrious railway servant who is always at his back. And +I would ask any one with a doubt upon this subject to consider what +his experience of the railway servant is from the time of his departure +to his arrival at his destination. I know what mine is. +Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman’s dress, scaling cabs, +storming carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of instinct, binding +up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old +ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs - mostly very complicated +- and sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look around +- there he is, in a station-master’s uniform, directing and overseeing, +with the head of a general, and with the courteous manners of a gentleman; +and then there is the handsome figure of the guard, who inspires confidence +in timid passengers. I glide out of the station, and there he +is again with his flags in his hand at his post in the open country, +at the level crossing, at the cutting, at the tunnel mouth, and at every +station on the road until our destination is reached. In regard, +therefore, to the railway servants with whom we do come into contact, +we may surely have some natural sympathy, and it is on their behalf +that I this night appeal to you. I beg now to propose “Success +to the Railway Benevolent Society.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On presiding at a public Meeting of the Printers’ Readers, +held at the Salisbury Hotel, on the above date, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<p>That as the meeting was convened, not to hear him, but to hear a +statement of facts and figures very nearly affecting the personal interests +of the great majority of those present, his preface to the proceedings +need be very brief. Of the details of the question he knew, of +his own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he had consented to occupy +the chair on that occasion at the request of the London Association +of Correctors of the Press for two reasons - first, because he thought +that openness and publicity in such cases were a very wholesome example +very much needed at this time, and were highly becoming to a body of +men associated with that great public safeguard - the Press; secondly, +because he knew from some slight practical experience, what the duties +of correctors of the press were, and how their duties were usually discharged; +and he could testify, and did testify, that they were not mechanical, +that they were not mere matters of manipulation and routine; but that +they required from those who performed them much natural intelligence, +much super-added cultivation, readiness of reference, quickness of resource, +an excellent memory, and a clear understanding. He most gratefully +acknowledged that he had never gone through the sheets of any book that +he had written, without having presented to him by the correctors of +the press something that he had overlooked, some slight inconsistency +into which he had fallen, some little lapse he had made - in short, +without having set down in black and white some unquestionable indication +that he had been closely followed through the work by a patient and +trained mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. And in this declaration +he had not the slightest doubt that the great body of his brother and +sister writers would, as a plain act of justice, readily concur. +For these plain reasons he was there; and being there he begged to assure +them that every one present - that every speaker - would have a patient +hearing, whatever his opinions might be.</p> +<p>[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote of +thanks to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair on the occasion.]</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed the belief that +their very calm and temperate proceedings would finally result in the +establishment of relations of perfect amity between the employers and +the employed, and consequently conduce to the general welfare of both.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary farewell +dinner was given to Mr. Dickens at the Freemasons’ Tavern on the +occasion of his revisiting the United States of America. Lord +Lytton officiated as chairman, and proposed as a toast - “A Prosperous +Voyage, Health, and Long Life to our Illustrious Guest and Countryman, +Charles Dickens”. The toast was drunk with all the honours, +and one cheer more. Mr. Dickens then rose, and spoke as follows:]</p> +<p>No thanks that I can offer you can express my sense of my reception +by this great assemblage, or can in the least suggest to you how deep +the glowing words of my friend the chairman, and your acceptance of +them, have sunk into my heart. But both combined have so greatly +shaken the composure which I am used to command before an audience, +that I hope you may observe in me some traces of an eloquence more expressive +than the richest words. To say that I am fervently grateful to +you is to say nothing; to say that I can never forget this beautiful +sight, is to say nothing; to say that it brings upon me a rush of emotion +not only in the present, but in the thought of its remembrance in the +future by those who are dearest to me, is to say nothing; but to feel +all this for the moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. +Mercutio says of the wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a +foe, that - “’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as +a church door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.” <a name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15">{15}</a> +I may say of the wound in my breast, newly dealt to me by the hands +of my friends, that it is deeper than the soundless sea, and wider than +the whole Catholic Church. I may safely add that it has for the +moment almost stricken me dumb. I should be more than human, and +I assure you I am very human indeed, if I could look around upon this +brilliant representative company and not feel greatly thrilled and stirred +by the presence of so many brother artists, not only in literature, +but also in the sister arts, especially painting, among whose professors +living and unhappily dead, are many of my oldest and best friends. +I hope that I may, without presumption, regard this thronging of my +brothers around me as a testimony on their part that they believe that +the cause of art generally has been safe in my keeping, and that it +has never been falsely dealt with by me. Your resounding cheers +just now would have been but so many cruel reproaches to me if I could +not here declare that, from the earliest days of my career down to this +proud night, I have always tried to be true to my calling. Never +unduly to assert it, on the one hand, and never, on any pretence or +consideration, to permit it to be patronized in my person, has been +the steady endeavour of my life; and I have occasionally been vain enough +to hope that I may leave its social position in England better than +I found it. Similarly, and equally I hope without presumption, +I trust that I may take this general representation of the public here, +through so many orders, pursuits, and degrees, as a token that the public +believe that, with a host of imperfections and shortcomings on my head, +I have as a writer, in my soul and conscience, tried to be as true to +them as they have ever been true to me. And here, in reference +to the inner circle of the arts and the outer circle of the public, +I feel it a duty to-night to offer two remarks. I have in my duty +at odd times heard a great deal about literary sets and cliques, and +coteries and barriers; about keeping this man up, and keeping that man +down; about sworn disciples and sworn unbelievers, and mutual admiration +societies, and I know not what other dragons in the upward path. +I began to tread it when I was very young, without influence, without +money, without companion, introducer, or adviser, and I am bound to +put in evidence in this place that I never lighted on these dragons +yet. So have I heard in my day, at divers other odd times, much +generally to the effect that the English people have little or no love +of art for its own sake, and that they do not greatly care to acknowledge +or do honour to the artist. My own experience has uniformly been +exactly the reverse. I can say that of my countrymen, though I +cannot say that of my country.</p> +<p>And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me this great +honour, the story of my going again to America is very easily and briefly +told. Since I was there before a vast and entirely new generation +has arisen in the United States. Since I was there before most +of the best known of my books have been written and published; the new +generation and the books have come together and have kept together, +until at length numbers of those who have so widely and constantly read +me; naturally desiring a little variety in the relationship between +us, have expressed a strong wish that I should read myself. This +wish, at first conveyed to me through public channels and business channels, +has gradually become enforced by an immense accumulation of letters +from individuals and associations of individuals, all expressing in +the same hearty, homely, cordial unaffected way, a kind of personal +interest in me - I had almost said a kind of personal affection for +me, which I am sure you would agree with me it would be dull insensibility +on my part not to prize. Little by little this pressure has become +so great that, although, as Charles Lamb says, my household gods strike +a terribly deep root, I have torn them from their places, and this day +week, at this hour, shall be upon the sea. You will readily conceive +that I am inspired besides by a natural desire to see for myself the +astonishing change and progress of a quarter of a century over there, +to grasp the hands of many faithful friends whom I left there, to see +the faces of the multitude of new friends upon whom I have never looked, +and last, not least, to use my best endeavour to lay down a third cable +of intercommunication and alliance between the old world and the new. +Twelve years ago, when Heaven knows I little thought I should ever be +bound upon the voyage which now lies before me, I wrote in that form +of my writings which obtains by far the most extensive circulation, +these words of the American nation:- “I know full well, whatever +little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, that they are +a kind, large-hearted, generous, and great people.” In that +faith I am going to see them again; in that faith I shall, please God, +return from them in the spring; in that same faith to live and to die. +I told you in the beginning that I could not thank you enough, and Heaven +knows I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I may quote one +other short sentence from myself, let it imply all that I have left +unsaid, and yet most deeply feel. Let it, putting a girdle round +the earth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic at once in this moment, +and say, as Tiny Tim observes, “God bless us every one.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, on the above date. +On his entrance a surprise awaited him. His reading-stand had +been decorated with flowers and palm-leaves by some of the ladies of +the city. He acknowledged this graceful tribute in the following +words:- “Before allowing Dr. Marigold to tell his story in his +own peculiar way, I kiss the kind, fair hands unknown, which have so +beautifully decorated my table this evening.” After the +Reading, Mr. Dickens attempted in vain to retire. Persistent hands +demanded “one word more.” Returning to his desk, pale, +with a tear in his eye, that found its way to his voice, he spoke as +follows:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - My gracious and generous welcome in America, +which can never be obliterated from my remembrance, began here. +My departure begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never until +this moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief life +of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, and I cannot +conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned towards my +native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration +with me that in a very few moments from this time, this brilliant hall +and all that it contains, will fade from my view - for ever more. +But it is my consolation that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick +perception, the ready response, the generous and the cheering sounds +that have made this place delightful to me, will remain; and you may +rely upon it that that spirit will abide with me as long as I have sense +and sentiment left.</p> +<p>I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships +that have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved spot +to me, for such private references have no business in this public place. +I say it purely in remembrance of, and in homage to, the great public +heart before me.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and +most affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1863.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained at a farewell dinner +at Delmonico’s Hotel, previous to his return to England. +Two hundred gentlemen sat down to it; Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. +In acknowledgment of the toast of his health, proposed by the chairman, +Mr. Dickens rose and said:-]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, - I cannot do better than take my cue to from your distinguished +president, and refer in my first remarks to his remarks in connexion +with the old, natural, association between you and me. When I +received an invitation from a private association of working members +of the press of New York to dine with them to-day, I accepted that compliment +in grateful remembrance of a calling that was once my own, and in loyal +sympathy towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quieted. +To the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I was a very +young man, I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons will hereafter +testify of their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder +by which he rose. If it were otherwise, I should have but a very +poor opinion of their father, which, perhaps, upon the whole, I have +not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances, this company would +have been exceptionally interesting and gratifying to me. But +whereas I supposed that, like the fairies’ pavilion in the “Arabian +Nights,” it would be but a mere handful, and I find it turn out, +like the same elastic pavilion, capable of comprehending a multitude, +so much the more proud am I of the honour of being your guest; for you +will readily believe that the more widely representative of the press +in America my entertainers are, the more I must feel the good-will and +the kindly sentiments towards me of that vast institution.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, +and I have for upwards of four hard winter months so contended against +what I have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was “a true +American catarrh ” - a possession which I have throughout highly +appreciated, though I might have preferred to be naturalised by any +other outward and visible signs - I say, gentlemen, so much of my voice +has lately been heard, that I might have been contented with troubling +you no further from my present standing-point, were it not a duty with +which I henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable +occasion whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful +sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony +to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how +astounded I have been by the amazing changes that I have seen around +me on every side - changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount +of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, +changes in the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes +in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the press, without whose +advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe +me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have +been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme +impressions to correct when I was here first.</p> +<p>And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since +I landed here last November, observed a strict silence, though tempted +sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good +leave, take you into my confidence now. Even the press, being +human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think +that I have in one or two rare instances known its information to be +not perfectly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have +now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have read of +myself than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present +state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which +I have for some months past been collecting materials for and hammering +away at a new book on America have much astonished me, seeing that all +that time it has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both +sides of the Atlantic that I positively declared that no consideration +on earth should induce me to write one. But what I have intended, +what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place +in you) is, on my return to England, in my own person, to bear, for +the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes +in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record +that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, +I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet +temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for +the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here, +and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, +and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall +cause to be re-published, as an appendix to every copy of those two +books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I +will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but +because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest +in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural +one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. I was +asked in this very city, about last Christmas time, whether an American +was not at some disadvantage in England as a foreigner. The notion +of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his +ever being thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly +incongruous and absurd to me, that my gravity was, for the moment, quite +overpowered. As soon as it was restored, I said that for years +and years past I hoped I had had as many American friends and had received +as many American visitors as almost any Englishman living, and that +my unvarying experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was enough +in England to be an American to be received with the readiest respect +and recognition anywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, +suddenly spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated +taste for art, who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the +walls of a certain historical English castle, famous for its pictures, +was refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the establishment +on that day, but who, on merely representing that he was an American +gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the picture gallery, but +the whole castle, placed at his immediate disposal. The other +was a lady, who, being in London, and having a great desire to see the +famous reading-room of the British Museum, was assured by the English +family with whom she stayed that it was unfortunately impossible, because +the place was closed for a week, and she had only three days there. +Upon that lady’s going to the Museum, as she assured me, alone +to the gate, self-introduced as an American lady, the gate flew open, +as it were magically. I am unwillingly bound to add that she certainly +was young and exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution +is of an obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of +him, not very impressible.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance +to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to do, +to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself, has no +previous conceptions to contend against. Points of difference +there have been, points of difference there are, points of difference +there probably always will be between the two great peoples. But +broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that those two peoples are +essentially one, and that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great +Anglo-Saxon race, to which our president has referred, and all its great +achievements before the world. And if I know anything of my countrymen +- and they give me credit for knowing something - if I know anything +of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering +of those Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies +except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation +towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended +that lovers should begin, with “a little aversion,” but +with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little +sensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, or the +little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, take +my word for it, that the first enduring, great, popular consideration +in England is a generous construction of justice.</p> +<p>Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I +do believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides, +there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for this +globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an +iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it should +present the spectacle of these two great nations, each of which has, +in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, +ever again being arrayed the one against the other. Gentlemen, +I cannot thank your president enough or you enough for your kind reception +of my health, and of my poor remarks, but, believe me, I do thank you +with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Mr. Dickens’s last Reading in the United States was given +at the Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was +about to retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. +He came forward and spoke thus:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - The shadow of one word has impended over +me this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must +fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things +is not measured by their length, and two much shorter words express +the round of our human existence. When I was reading “David +Copperfield” a few evenings since, I felt there was more than +usual significance in the words of Peggotty, “My future life lies +over the sea.” And when I closed this book just now, I felt +most keenly that I was shortly to establish such an <i>alibi</i> as +would have satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations +which have been set up between us, while they have involved for me something +more than mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the +readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.</p> +<p>Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, however, +that you will not pass from my mind. I shall often realise you +as I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English +summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public audience, +but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with the greatest +gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, +I beg to bid you farewell. God bless you, and God bless the land +in which I leave you.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet held +in his honour at St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, after his health +had been proposed by Lord Dufferin.]</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, although I have been so well accustomed +of late to the sound of my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear +it with perfect composure, the occasion is, believe me, very, very different +in respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor +Wilson once confided to me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, +from hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself +to be when he was quite alone - so you can form no conception, from +the specimen before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you +again and again in some of the innermost moments of my future life. +Often and often, then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant +scene, and will re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I, faithful to +this place in its present aspect, will observe it exactly as it stands +- not one man’s seat empty, not one woman’s fair face absent, +while life and memory abide by me.</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so eloquently +uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful and gracious allusion +to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble city. +It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment’s untrustworthy +enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock of experience +that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, +systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and +to try to express myself to them through the breath of life, Liverpool +stood foremost among the great places out of London to which I looked +with eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this? Not +merely because of the reputation of its citizens for generous estimation +of the arts; not merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of +its great self-educational institution long ago; not merely because +the place had been a home to me since the well-remembered day when its +blessed roofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion +of my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the Atlantic +twenty-seven years ago. Not for one of those considerations, but +because it had been my happiness to have a public opportunity of testing +the spirit of its people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards +the worthy preservation of Shakespeare’s house. On another +occasion I had ventured to address Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt +and Sheridan Knowles. On still another occasion I had addressed +it in the cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the +kindred arts, and on each and all the response had been unsurpassably +spontaneous, open-handed, and munificent.</p> +<p>Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a small +illustration of my present position from my own peculiar craft, I would +say that there is this objection in writing fiction to giving a story +an autobiographical form, that through whatever dangers the narrator +may pass, it is clear unfortunately to the reader beforehand that he +must have come through them somehow else he could not have lived to +tell the tale. Now, in speaking fact, when the fact is associated +with such honours as those with which you have enriched me, there is +this singular difficulty in the way of returning thanks, that the speaker +must infallibly come back to himself through whatever oratorical disasters +he may languish on the road. Let me, then, take the plainer and +simpler middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself +and you. Let me assure you that whatever you have accepted with +pleasure, either by word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have +greatly improved in the acceptance. As the gold is said to be +doubly and trebly refined which has seven times passed the furnace, +so a fancy may be said to become more and more refined each time it +passes through the human heart. You have, and you know you have, +brought to the consideration of me that quality in yourselves without +which I should but have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated +mine, your laughter has made me laugh, and your tears have overflowed +my eyes. All that I can claim for myself in establishing the relations +which exist between us is constant fidelity to hard work. My literary +fellows about me, of whom I am so proud to see so many, know very well +how true it is in all art that what seems the easiest done is oftentimes +the most difficult to do, and that the smallest truth may come of the +greatest pains - much, as it occurred to me at Manchester the other +day, as the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth’s measuring machine, +comes at last, of Heaven and Manchester and its mayor only know how +much hammering - my companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think +it only right the public should know too, that in our careful toil and +trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence - not in any little +gifts, misused by fits and starts - lies our highest duty at once to +our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to you.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to clear +myself of two very unexpected accusations. The first is a most +singular charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord Houghton, +that I have been somewhat unconscious of the merits of the House of +Lords. Now, ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have had some +few not altogether obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly, +seeing that I had some little association with, and knowledge of, a +certain obscure peer lately known in England by the name of Lord Brougham; +seeing that I regard with some admiration and affection another obscure +peer wholly unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing +also that I have had for some years some slight admiration of the extraordinary +judicial properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief +Justice popularly known by the name of Cockburn; and also seeing that +there is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, +whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have received +more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than another +obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into +consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend’s accusation. +When I asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed +him to make this charge, he replied that he had never forgotten the +days of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood +it all. Because it is a remarkable fact that in the days when +that depreciative and profoundly unnatural character was invented there +was no Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the +House of Commons a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton +Milnes.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close with +the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious, and +I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a dozen plain +words. When I first took literature as my profession in England, +I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether +I failed, literature should be my sole profession. It appeared +to me at that time that it was not so well understood in England as +it was in other countries that literature was a dignified profession, +by which any man might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself +that in my person literature should stand, and by itself, of itself, +and for itself; and there is no consideration on earth which would induce +me to break that bargain.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great +kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have drunk +my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it had +not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost +my heart at between half-past six and half-past seven to-night.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE. SYDENHAM, AUGUST +30, 1869.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The International University Boat Race having taken place on August +27, the London Rowing Club invited the Crews to a Dinner at the Crystal +Palace on the following Monday. The dinner was followed by a grand +display of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in proposing the health +of the Crews, made the following speech:]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as +about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spirt and +then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the +London Rowing Club on this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in +the name of the other invited visitors present - always excepting the +distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting - to thank the +president for the modesty and the courtesy with which he has deputed +to one of us the most agreeable part of his evening’s duty. +It is the more graceful in him to do this because he can hardly fail +to see that he might very easily do it himself, as this is a case of +all others in which it is according to good taste and the very principles +of things that the great social vice, speech-making, should hide it +diminished head before the great social virtue action. However, +there is an ancient story of a lady who threw her glove into an arena +full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant lover to climb down and reclaim +it. The lover, rightly inferring from the action the worth of +the lady, risked his life for the glove, and then threw it rightly in +her face as a token of his eternal adieu. <a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16">{16}</a> +I take up the President’s glove, on the contrary, as a proof of +his much higher worth, and of my real interest in the cause in which +it was thrown down, and I now profess my readiness to do even injustice +to the duty which he has assigned me.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in +the United States within a short time before my last visit to that hospitable +land, containing ninety-five biographies of young men, for the most +part well-born and well nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits +of life, who, when the flag of their country waved them from those quiet +paths in which they were seeking distinction of various kinds, took +arms in the dread civil war which elicited so much bravery on both sides, +and died in the defence of their country. These great spirits +displayed extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, +of military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great masses +of men, in surprising readiness of self-resource for the general good, +in humanely treating the sick and the wounded, and in winning to themselves +a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had +all risen to be distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great +heroism; they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a +serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; +and they had all been educated in one school - Harvard University.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants +of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they +fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted +defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard +University is less true to herself in peace than she was in war? +I ask you, who will not recognise in her boat’s crew the leaven +of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she has now a greater right +than ever to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to her breast +when they return with resounding acclamations? It is related of +the Duke of Wellington that he once told a lady who foolishly protested +that she would like to see a great victory that there was only one thing +worse than a great victory, and that was a great defeat.</p> +<p>But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term a +great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of daring fellows +who make a preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles to +meet great conquerors on their own domain - who do not want the stimulus +of friends and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear +land in the shouts and cheers of another - and who strive to the last +with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather +in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me that such a +defeat is a great, noble part of a manly, wholesome action; and I say +that it is in the essence and life-blood of such a defeat to become +at last sure victory.</p> +<p>Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to propose, +and you know equally well that in thus glancing first towards our friends +of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive +courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers from a distance - a courtesy +extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, to any imaginable limits except +allowing them to take the first place in last Friday’s match, +if they could by any human and honourable means be kept in the second. +I will not avail myself of the opportunity provided for me by the absence +of the greater part of the Oxford crew - indeed, of all but one, and +that, its most modest and devoted member - I will not avail myself of +the golden opportunity considerately provided for me to say a great +deal in honour of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who +attends here attends under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that +if he were less in earnest his filial affection could not possibly allow +him to be here.</p> +<p>It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you, that +I should say here, and now, that we all unite with one accord in regarding +the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England - and that we should +consider it very weak indeed to set anything short of England’s +very best in opposition to or competition with America; though it certainly +must be confessed - I am bound in common justice and honour to admit +it - it must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard +a discontented gentleman remark - last Friday night, about ten o’clock, +when he was baiting a very small horse in the Strand - he was one of +eleven with pipes in a chaise cart - I say it must be admitted in disparagement +of the Oxford men on the authority of this gentleman, that they have +won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and that “they +ought to do it, but they won’t.”</p> +<p>Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor testimony +of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant spectacle which they +presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure I express not +only your feeling, and my feeling, and the feeling of the Blue, but +also the feeling of the whole people of England, when I cordially give +them welcome to our English waters and English ground, and also bid +them “God speed” in their voyage home. As the greater +includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I think it is no +very bold augury to predict that in the friendly contests yet to come +and to take place, I hope, on both sides of the Atlantic - there are +great river triumphs for Harvard University yet in store. Gentlemen, +I warn the English portion of this audience that these are very dangerous +men. Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University +who served as a common seaman two years before the mast, <a name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17">{17}</a> +and who wrote about the best sea book in the English tongue. Remember +that it was one of those young American gentlemen who sailed his mite +of a yacht across the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her +to sink or swim with the men who believed in him.</p> +<p>And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, +I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a distance that +the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received on their return +home will find a ready echo in every corner of England - and further, +that none of their immediate countrymen - I use the qualifying term +immediate, for we are, as our president said, fellow countrymen, thank +God - that none of their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what +they did in this great race, can be more thoroughly imbued with a sense +of their indomitable courage and their high deserts than are their rivals +and their hosts to-night. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to +drink the crews of Harvard and Oxford University, and I beg to couple +with that toast the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Inaugural Address on the opening of the Winter Session of the Birmingham +and Midland Institute.</p> +<p>One who was present during the delivery of the following speech, +informs the editor that “no note of any kind was referred to by +Mr. Dickens - except the Quotation from Sydney Smith. The address, +evidently carefully prepared, was delivered without a single pause, +in Mr. Dickens’s best manner, and was a very great success.”]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - We often hear of our common country that +it is an over-populated one, that it is an over-pauperized one, that +it is an over-colonizing one, and that it is an over-taxed one. +Now, I entertain, especially of late times, the heretical belief that +it is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of public speech-making +going about in various directions which might be advantageously dispensed +with. If I were free to act upon this conviction, as president +for the time being of the great institution so numerously represented +here, I should immediately and at once subside into a golden silence, +which would be of a highly edifying, because of a very exemplary character. +But I happen to be the institution’s willing servant, not its +imperious master, and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech +- not to say brazen - from whomsoever it exalts to my high office. +Some African tribes - not to draw the comparison disrespectfully - some +savage African tribes, when they make a king require him perhaps to +achieve an exhausting foot-race under the stimulus of considerable popular +prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentally knocked +about the head by his Privy Council, or perhaps to be dipped in a river +full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities of something +nasty out of a calabash - at all events, to undergo some purifying ordeal +in presence of his admiring subjects.</p> +<p>I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned +by your constituted authorities that whatever I might happen to say +here to-night would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance upon +a new term of study by the members of your various classes; for, besides +that, the phrase is something high-sounding for my taste, I avow that +I do look forward to that blessed time when every man shall inaugurate +his own work for himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then +have inaugurated a new era indeed, and one in which the Lord’s +Prayer will become a fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering, +however, that you may call anything by any name without in the least +changing its nature - bethinking myself that you may, if you be so minded, +call a butterfly a buffalo, without advancing a hair’s breadth +towards making it one - I became composed in my mind, and resolved to +stick to the very homely intention I had previously formed. This +was merely to tell you, the members, students, and friends of the Birmingham +and Midland Institute - firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know, +(this is a very popular oratorical theme); secondly, what your institution +has done; and, thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its President for +the time being, remains for it to do and not to do.</p> +<p>Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You +cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the abstract +advantages of knowledge or the beauties of self-improvement. If +you had any such requirement you would not be here. I conceive +that you are here because you have become thoroughly penetrated with +such principles, either in your own persons or in the persons of some +striving fellow-creatures, on whom you have looked with interest and +sympathy. I conceive that you are here because you feel the welfare +of the great chiefly adult educational establishment, whose doors stand +really open to all sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable +from the best welfare of your great town and its neighbourhood. +Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say that we all - every +one of us here - perfectly well know that the benefits of such an establishment +must extend far beyond the limits of this midland county - its fires +and smoke, - and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole community, +I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage, in +his ninth “Bridgewater Treatise,” that a mere spoken word +- a single articulated syllable thrown into the air - may go on reverberating +through illimitable space for ever and for ever, seeing that there is +no rim against which it can strike - no boundary at which it can possibly +arrive. Similarly it may be said - not as an ingenious speculation, +but as a stedfast and absolute fact - that human calculation cannot +limit the influence of one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, +modestly possessed, and faithfully used.</p> +<p>As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in +the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of which +myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain +that every man, however obscure, however far removed from the general +recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for good, and impressible +for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he cannot +really improve himself without in some degree improving other men. +And observe, this is especially the case when he has improved himself +in the teeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to +a neglected or an ill-taught youth, in the few daily hours remaining +to him after ten or twelve hours’ labour, in the few pauses and +intervals of a life of toil; for then his fellows and companions have +assurance that he can have known no favouring conditions, and that they +can do what he has done, in wresting some enlightenment and self-respect +from what Lord Lytton finely calls -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Those twin gaolers of the daring heart,<br />Low birth and +iron fortune.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your +own observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there can be very +few persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who would contest +the position that the more cultivated the employed the better for the +employer, and the more cultivated the employer the better for the employed; +therefore, my references to what you do not want to know shall here +cease and determine.</p> +<p>Next, with reference to what your institution has done on my summary, +which shall be as concise and as correct as my information and my remembrance +of it may render possible, I desire to lay emphatic stress. Your +institution, sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen study +together, has outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 +or 2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of its +vigorous vitality that of its industrial-students almost half are artisans +in the receipt of weekly wages. I think I am correct in saying +that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen’s +sons. I note with particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly +number of the gentler sex, without whom no institution whatever can +truly claim to be either a civilising or a civilised one. The +increased attendance at your educational classes is always greatest +on the part of the artisans - the class within my experience the least +reached in any similar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is the +oftenest and the most constantly taken in vain. But it is specially +reached here, not improbably because it is, as it should be, specially +addressed in the foundation of the industrial department, in the allotment +of the direction of the society’s affairs, and in the establishment +of what are called its penny classes - a bold, and, I am happy to say, +a triumphantly successful experiment, which enables the artisan to obtain +sound evening instruction in subjects directly bearing upon his daily +usefulness or on his daily happiness, as arithmetic (elementary and +advanced), chemistry, physical geography, and singing, on payment of +the astoundingly low fee of a single penny every time he attends the +class. I beg emphatically to say that I look upon this as one +of the most remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof +of the artisan, and if your institution had done nothing else in all +its life, I would take my stand by it on its having done this.</p> +<p>Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has its general +department, offering all the advantages of a first-class literary institution. +It has its reading-rooms, its library, its chemical laboratory, its +museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures +on subjects of various and comprehensive interest, delivered by lecturers +of the highest qualifications. Very well. But it may be +asked, what are the practical results of all these appliances? +Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that your institution should +have educated those who are now its teachers. That would be a +very remarkable fact. Supposing, besides, it should, so to speak, +have educated education all around it, by sending forth numerous and +efficient teachers into many and divers schools. Suppose the young +student, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should be presently snapped +up for the laboratory of the great and famous hospitals. Suppose +that in nine years its industrial students should have carried off a +round dozen of the much competed for prizes awarded by the Society of +Arts and the Government department, besides two local prizes originating +in the generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council, +having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the Whitworth +prizes, should find him here. Suppose that one of the industrial +students should turn his chemical studies to the practical account of +extracting gold from waste colour water, and of taking it into custody, +in the very act of running away with hundreds of pounds down the town +drains. Suppose another should perceive in his books, in his studious +evenings, what was amiss with his master’s until then inscrutably +defective furnace, and should go straight - to the great annual saving +of that master - and put it right. Supposing another should puzzle +out the means, until then quite unknown in England, of making a certain +description of coloured glass. Supposing another should qualify +himself to vanquish one by one, as they daily arise, all the little +difficulties incidental to his calling as an electro-plater, and should +be applied to by his companions in the shop in all emergencies under +the name of the “Encyclopaedia.” Suppose a long procession +of such cases, and then consider that these are not suppositions at +all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating in the one special +and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, every one +of the institution’s industrial students who have taken its prizes +within ten years, have since climbed to higher situations in their way +of life.</p> +<p>As to the extent to which the institution encourages the artisan +to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the little shackling +prejudices and observances perchance existing in his trade when they +will not bear the test of inquiry, that is only to be equalled by the +extent to which it encourages him to feel. There is a certain +tone of modest manliness pervading all the little facts which I have +looked through which I found remarkably impressive. The decided +objection on the part of industrial students to attend classes in their +working clothes, breathes this tone, as being a graceful and at the +same time perfectly independent recognition of the place and of one +another. And this tone is admirably illustrated in a different +way, in the case of a poor bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses +through the illness of his family, and having consequently been obliged +to part with his best clothes, and being therefore missed from his classes, +in which he had been noticed as a very hard worker, was persuaded to +attend them in his working clothes. He replied, “No, it +was not possible. It must not be thought of. It must not +come into question for a moment. It would be supposed, or it might +be thought, that he did it to attract attention.” And the same +man being offered by one of the officers a loan of money to enable him +to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the ground +that he came to the institution to learn and to know better how to help +himself, not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help from any man. +Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the institution, because +it is no isolated instance, but is a fair and honourable sample of the +spirit of the place, and as such I put it at the conclusion - though +last certainly not least - of my references to what your institution +has indubitably done.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble +opinion of the evanescent officer before you, remains for the institution +to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it towards the closing +pages of his grand history of the French Revolution, “This we +are now with due brevity to glance at; and then courage, oh listener, +I see land!” <a name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18">{18}</a> +I earnestly hope - and I firmly believe - that your institution will +do henceforth as it has done hitherto; it can hardly do better. +I hope and believe that it will know among its members no distinction +of persons, creed, or party, but that it will conserve its place of +assemblage as a high, pure ground, on which all such considerations +shall merge into the one universal, heaven-sent aspiration of the human +soul to be wiser and better. I hope and believe that it will always +be expansive and elastic; for ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging +the circle of its members, of attracting to itself the confidence of +still greater and greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition +to stand still than time does, or life does, or the seasons do. +And above all things, I hope, and I feel confident from its antecedents, +that it will never allow any consideration on the face of the earth +to induce it to patronise or to be patronised, for I verily believe +that the bestowal and receipt of patronage in such wise has been a curse +in England, and that it has done more to prevent really good objects, +and to lower really high character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest +antagonism could have effected in twice the time.</p> +<p>I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland Institute +will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the timid opponents +of intellectual progress; but in this connexion generally I cannot forbear +from offering a remark which is much upon my mind. It is commonly +assumed - much too commonly - that this age is a material age, and that +a material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained lately +to see this assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for +which I have a high respect, and desire to have a higher. I am +afraid that by dint of constantly being reiterated, and reiterated without +protest, this assumption - which I take leave altogether to deny - may +be accepted by the more unthinking part of the public as unquestionably +true; just as caricaturists and painters, professedly making a portrait +of some public man, which was not in the least like him to begin with, +have gone on repeating and repeating it until the public came to believe +that it must be exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, +and really have at last, in the fulness of time, grown almost disposed +to resent upon him their tardy discovery - really to resent upon him +their late discovery - that he was not like it. I confess, standing +here in this responsible situation, that I do not understand this much-used +and much-abused phrase - the “material age.” I cannot +comprehend - if anybody can I very much doubt - its logical signification. +For instance, has electricity become more material in the mind of any +sane or moderately insane man, woman, or child, because of the discovery +that in the good providence of God it could be made available for the +service and use of man to an immeasurably greater extent than for his +destruction? Do I make a more material journey to the bed-side +of my dying parent or my dying child when I travel there at the rate +of sixty miles an hour, than when I travel thither at the rate of six? +Rather, in the swiftest case, does not my agonised heart become over-fraught +with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from whom alone could have +proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense? What +is the materiality of the cable or the wire compared with the materiality +of the spark? What is the materiality of certain chemical substances +that we can weigh or measure, imprison or release, compared with the +materiality of their appointed affinities and repulsions presented to +them from the instant of their creation to the day of judgment? +When did this so-called material age begin? With the use of clothing; +with the discovery of the compass; with the invention of the art of +printing? Surely, it has been a long time about; and which is +the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give +me light, or that flame of gas which will?</p> +<p>No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived +by any fine, vapid, empty words. The true material age is the +stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are +granted, because they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead +of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference between +the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning and the +modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in +order that he might the more profoundly study that which was set before +him to be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses +to my mind the distinction between the much-maligned material sages +- material in one sense, I suppose, but in another very immaterial sages +- of the Celestial Empire school. Consider whether it is likely +or unlikely, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that +I, a being capable of thought, and finding myself surrounded by such +discovered wonders on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the question +- should put to myself the solemn consideration - can these things be +among those things which might have been disclosed by divine lips nigh +upon two thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could +not bear them? And whether this be so or no, if I am so surrounded +on every hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased +thereby, and with it my intelligence and submission as a child of Adam +and of the dust, before that Shining Source which equally of all that +is granted and all that is withheld holds in His mighty hands the unapproachable +mysteries of life and death.</p> +<p>To the students of your industrial classes generally I have had it +in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two words, “Courage +- Persevere.” This is the motto of a friend and worker. +Not because the eyes of Europe are upon them, for I don’t in the +least believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon them, +for I don’t in the least believe it; not because their doings +will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at street corners, for no such +musical performances will take place; not because self-improvement is +at all certain to lead to worldly success, but simply because it is +good and right of itself, and because, being so, it does assuredly bring +with it its own resources and its own rewards. I would further +commend to them a very wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct +of the understanding which was given more than half a century ago by +the Rev. Sydney Smith - wisest and wittiest of the friends I have lost. +He says - and he is speaking, you will please understand, as I speak, +to a school of volunteer students - he says: “There is a piece +of foppery which is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of +universality, of knowing all sciences and excelling in all arts - chymistry, +mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, +Low Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern +precept of education very often is, ‘Take the Admirable Crichton +for your model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.’ Now,” +says he, “my advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to +be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid +the calamity of being ignorant of everything.”</p> +<p>To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good +of my own life and the life of every eminent man I have ever known. +The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality +in every study and in every pursuit is the quality of attention. +My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully +assure you, would never have served me as it has, but for the habit +of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. +Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association +of ideas - such mental qualities, like the qualities of the apparition +of the externally armed head in <i>Macbeth</i>, will not be commanded; +but attention, after due term of submissive service, always will. +Like certain plants which the poorest peasant may grow in the poorest +soil, it can be cultivated by any one, and it is certain in its own +good season to bring forth flowers and fruit. I can most truthfully +assure you by-the-by, that this eulogium on attention is so far quite +disinterested on my part as that it has not the least reference whatever +to the attention with which you have honoured me.</p> +<p>Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect +how often you have probably heard within these walls one of the foremost +men, and certainly one of the very best speakers, if not the very best, +in England. I could not say to myself, when I began just now, +in Shakespeare’s line -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I will be BRIGHT and shining gold,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, “I will +be as natural and easy as I possibly can,” because my heart has +all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and +Birmingham men. I have said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham +and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and add “and +Birmingham women.” This ring I wear on my finger now is +an old Birmingham gift, and if by rubbing it I could raise the spirit +that was obedient to Aladdin’s ring, I heartily assure you that +my first instruction to that genius on the spot should be to place himself +at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that I shall +have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is out, and +shall have the great interest of seeing the faces and touching the bands +of the successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that +anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably +result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily, and I +most sincerely and fervently say to you, “Good night, and God +bless you.” In reference to the appropriate and excellent +remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge my conscience of my political +creed, which is contained in two articles, and has no reference to any +party or persons. My faith in the people governing is, on the +whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the People governed is, on the whole, +illimitable.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the evening of the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the +Birmingham and Midland Institute, distributed the prizes and certificates +awarded to the most successful students in the first year. The +proceedings took place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens entered at eight +o’clock, accompanied by the officers of the Institute, and was +received with loud applause. After the lapse of a minute or two, +he rose and said:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - When I last had the honour to preside over +a meeting of the Institution which again brings us together, I took +occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of public speaking +which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require +very little self-denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; +firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly, because +we have definite and highly interesting action before us to-night. +We have now to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by +the most successful competitors in the society’s lists. +I say the most successful, because to-night we should particularly observe, +I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there +is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. +To strive at all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, +and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves, besides, +in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted +over circumstances adverse to the effort made. Therefore, every +losing competitor among my hearers may be certain that he has still +won much - very much - and that he can well afford to swell the triumph +of his rivals who have passed him in the race.</p> +<p>I have applied the word “rewards” to these prizes, and +I do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver +or gold, but precisely because they do not. They represent what +is above all price - what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, +and what is one of the great needs of the human soul - encouraging sympathy. +They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, +that he does not work either neglected or unfriended, and that he is +watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. Such an assurance, +conveyed in the presence of this large assembly, and striking to the +breasts of the recipients that thrill which is inseparable from any +great united utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely +worthy of the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and +by a sensitive spirit can never be forgotten.</p> +<p>[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of +“Pickwick,” which was received with laugher. Mr. Dickens +made some remarks to the lady in an undertone; and then observed to +the audience, “I have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name.” +The prizes having been distributed, Mr. Dickens made a second brief +speech. He said:-]</p> +<p>The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself +of the delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if the recipients +of these prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform have +had the genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments from my +hands that I have had in placing them in theirs, they are in a true +Christian temper to-night. I have the painful sense upon me, that +it is reserved for some one else to enjoy this great satisfaction of +mind next time. It would be useless for the few short moments +longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth +Night, but that another Sovereign will very soon sit upon my inconstant +throne. To-night I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in +the modern annals of Royalty - I am politely dethroned. This melancholy +reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal +to myself, upon which I will beg your permission to say a closing word.</p> +<p>When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks +of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my political +faith - or perhaps I should better say want of faith. It imported +that I have very little confidence in the people who govern us - please +to observe “people” there will be with a small “p,” +- but that I have great confidence in the People whom they govern; please +to observe “people” there with a large “P.” +This was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil intention, +I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained. Perhaps +as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one which I do +see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the +bottom of it - a fiction called the “Circumlocution Office,” +- and perhaps also as the writer of an idle book or two, whose public +opinions are not obscurely stated - perhaps in these respects I do not +sufficiently bear in mind Hamlet’s caution to speak by the card +lest equivocation should undo me.</p> +<p>Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may be no +mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will re-state +my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, a great +writer, and a great scholar, <a name="citation19"></a><a href="#footnote19">{19}</a> +whose death, unfortunately for mankind, cut short his “History +of Civilization in England:” - “They may talk as they will +about reforms which Government has introduced and improvements to be +expected from legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more commanding +view of human affairs, will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. +They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors of +society instead of its helpers, and that in the extremely few cases +where their measures have turned out well their success has been owing +to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, they have implicitly +obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been - as they always should +be - the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes they are bound +to give a public and legal sanction.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846. <a name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20">{20}</a></h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The first anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund Association +was held on the evening of the above date at the London Tavern. +The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus proposed the principal +toast:]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, - In offering to you a toast which has not as yet been +publicly drunk in any company, it becomes incumbent on me to offer a +few words in explanation: in the first place, premising that the toast +will be “The General Theatrical Fund.”</p> +<p>The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate to-night, was founded +seven years ago, for the purpose of granting permanent pensions to such +of the <i>corps dramatique</i> as had retired from the stage, either +from a decline in their years or a decay of their powers. Collected +within the scope of its benevolence are all actors and actresses, singers, +or dancers, of five years’ standing in the profession. To +relieve their necessities and to protect them from want is the great +end of the Society, and it is good to know that for seven years the +members of it have steadily, patiently, quietly, and perseveringly pursued +this end, advancing by regular contribution, moneys which many of them +could ill afford, and cheered by no external help or assistance of any +kind whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, +but I trust that we shall establish to-night that its time is out, and +that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and brilliant +career.</p> +<p>I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were when +this institution was founded, two other institutions existing of a similar +nature - Covent Garden and Drury Lane - both of long standing, both +richly endowed. It cannot, however, be too distinctly understood, +that the present Institution is not in any way adverse to those. +How can it be when it is only a wide and broad extension of all that +is most excellent in the principles on which they are founded? +That such an extension was absolutely necessary was sufficiently proved +by the fact that the great body of the dramatic corps were excluded +from the benefits conferred by a membership of either of these institutions; +for it was essential, in order to become a member of the Drury Lane +Society, that the applicant, either he or she, should have been engaged +for three consecutive seasons as a performer. This was afterwards +reduced, in the case of Covent Garden, to a period of two years, but +it really is as exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell +you that Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might +play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put them all +into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard within its +walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous prestidigitation +of the Wizard of the North. In like manner, Drury Lane is conducted +now with almost a sole view to the opera and ballet, insomuch that the +statue of Shakespeare over the door serves as emphatically to point +out his grave as his bust did in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon. +How can the profession generally hope to qualify for the Drury Lane +or Covent Garden institution, when the oldest and most distinguished +members have been driven from the boards on which they have earned their +reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the General Theatrical +Fund alone extended?</p> +<p>I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, +with which I have had the honour of being connected at different periods +of my life. At the time those Associations were established, an +engagement at one of those theatres was almost a matter of course, and +a successful engagement would last a whole life; but an engagement of +two months’ duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr +of an engagement just now. It should never be forgotten that when +those two funds were established, the two great theatres were protected +by patent, and that at that time the minor theatres were condemned by +law to the representation of the most preposterous nonsense, and some +gentlemen whom I see around me could no more belong to the minor theatres +of that day than they could now belong to St. Bartholomew fair.</p> +<p>As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they have +done, so I honour this for the much greater good it is resolved to do. +It is not because I love them less, but because I love this more - because +it includes more in its operation.</p> +<p>Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so +much in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win the great prizes, +but who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, +and by consequence bear a part in contributing to our pleasures. +We owe them a debt which we ought to pay. The beds of such men +are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed. Their +lives are lives of care and privation, and hard struggles with very +stern realities. It is from among the poor actors who drink wine +from goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and who preside +at Barmecide beasts with wonderful appetites for steaks, - it is from +their ranks that the most triumphant favourites have sprung. And +surely, besides this, the greater the instruction and delight we derive +from the rich English drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect +the humblest of those votaries of the art who add to our instruction +and amusement.</p> +<p>Hazlitt has well said that “There is no class of society whom +so many persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them +on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always +recal to us pleasant associations.” <a name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21">{21}</a> +When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them +not be heard no more - but let them be heard sometimes to say that they +are happy in their old age. When they have passed for the last +time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all +familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and darkness, - but let +them pass into cheerfulness and light - into a contented and happy home.</p> +<p>This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar with +the English character not to know that it will be effected. When +we come suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn features of a +familiar face - crossing us like the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten +- let us not recal those features with pain, in sad remembrance of what +they once were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or +two to meet it once again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of +a moment of care, who has taught us to sympathize with virtuous grief, +cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own - and we all know how pleasant +are such tears. Let such a face be ever remembered as that of +our benefactor and our friend.</p> +<p>I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in +any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some pleasant +association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, out of my varied +experience, I could not remember even one from which I had not brought +some favourable impression, and that, commencing with the period when +I believed the clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets, +and ending with that in which I saw the other night, outside one of +the “Royal Saloons,” a playbill which showed me ships completely +rigged, carrying men, and careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans. +And now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, +I beg to propose that you drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast +was drunk in this toast-drinking city “Prosperity to the General +Theatrical Fund.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the above evening a Soirée of the Leeds Mechanics’ +Institution took place, at which about 1200 persons were present. +The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - Believe me, speaking to you with a most disastrous +cold, which makes my own voice sound very strangely in my ears - that +if I were not gratified and honoured beyond expression by your cordial +welcome, I should have considered the invitation to occupy my present +position in this brilliant assemblage in itself a distinction not easy +to be surpassed. The cause in which we are assembled and the objects +we are met to promote, I take, and always have taken to be, <i>the</i> +cause and <i>the</i> objects involving almost all others that are essential +to the welfare and happiness of mankind. And in a celebration +like the present, commemorating the birth and progress of a great educational +establishment, I recognise a something, not limited to the spectacle +of the moment, beautiful and radiant though it be - not limited even +to the success of the particular establishment in which we are more +immediately interested - but extending from this place and through swarms +of toiling men elsewhere, cheering and stimulating them in the onward, +upward path that lies before us all. Wherever hammers beat, or +wherever factory chimneys smoke, wherever hands are busy, or the clanking +of machinery resounds - wherever, in a word, there are masses of industrious +human beings whom their wise Creator did not see fit to constitute all +body, but into each and every one of whom He breathed a mind - there, +I would fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is felt +from our collective pulse now beating in this Hall.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at the report of +your Institution for the present year sent to me by your respected President +- whom I cannot help feeling it, by-the-bye, a kind of crime to depose, +even thus peacefully, and for so short a time - I say, glancing over +this report, I found one statement of fact in the very opening which +gave me an uncommon satisfaction. It is, that a great number of +the members and subscribers are among that class of persons for whose +advantage Mechanics’ Institutions were originated, namely, persons +receiving weekly wages. This circumstance gives me the greatest +delight. I am sure that no better testimony could be borne to +the merits and usefulness of this Institution, and that no better guarantee +could be given for its continued prosperity and advancement.</p> +<p>To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, there may yet +reappear now and then the spectral shadow of a certain dead and buried +opposition; but before the light of a steady trust in them on the part +of the general people, bearing testimony to the virtuous influences +of such Institutions by their own intelligence and conduct, the ghost +will melt away like early vapour from the ground. Fear of such +Institutions as these! We have heard people sometimes speak with +jealousy of them, - with distrust of them! Imagine here, on either +hand, two great towns like Leeds, full of busy men, all of them feeling +necessarily, and some of them heavily, the burdens and inequalities +inseparable from civilized society. In this town there is ignorance, +dense and dark; in that town, education - the best of education; that +which the grown man from day to day and year to year furnishes for himself +and maintains for himself, and in right of which his education goes +on all his life, instead of leaving off, complacently, just when he +begins to live in the social system. Now, which of these two towns +has a good man, or a good cause, reason to distrust and dread? +“The educated one,” does some timid politician, with a marvellously +weak sight, say (as I have heard such politicians say), “because +knowledge is power, and because it won’t do to have too much power +abroad.” Why, ladies and gentlemen, reflect whether ignorance +be not power, and a very dreadful power. Look where we will, do +we not find it powerful for every kind of wrong and evil? Powerful +to take its enemies to its heart, and strike its best friends down - +powerful to fill the prisons, the hospitals, and the graves - powerful +for blind violence, prejudice, and error, in all their gloomy and destructive +shapes. Whereas the power of knowledge, if I understand it, is, +to bear and forbear; to learn the path of duty and to tread it; to engender +that self-respect which does not stop at self, but cherishes the best +respect for the best objects - to turn an always enlarging acquaintance +with the joys and sorrows, capabilities and imperfections of our race +to daily account in mildness of life and gentleness of construction +and humble efforts for the improvement, stone by stone, of the whole +social fabric.</p> +<p>I never heard but one tangible position taken against educational +establishments for the people, and that was, that in this or that instance, +or in these or those instances, education for the people has failed. +And I have never traced even this to its source but I have found that +the term education, so employed, meant anything but education - implied +the mere imperfect application of old, ignorant, preposterous spelling-book +lessons to the meanest purposes - as if you should teach a child that +there is no higher end in electricity, for example, than expressly to +strike a mutton-pie out of the hand of a greedy boy - and on which it +is as unreasonable to found an objection to education in a comprehensive +sense, as it would be to object altogether to the combing of youthful +hair, because in a certain charity school they had a practice of combing +it into the pupils’ eyes.</p> +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of this Institution, +on whose behalf we are met; and I start with the education given there, +and I find that it really is an education that is deserving of the name. +I find that there are papers read and lectures delivered, on a variety +of subjects of interest and importance. I find that there are +evening classes formed for the acquisition of sound, useful English +information, and for the study of those two important languages, daily +becoming more important in the business of life, - the French and German. +I find that there is a class for drawing, a chemical class, subdivided +into the elementary branch and the manufacturing branch, most important +here. I find that there is a day-school at twelve shillings a +quarter, which small cost, besides including instruction in all that +is useful to the merchant and the man of business, admits to all the +advantages of the parent institution. I find that there is a School +of Design established in connexion with the Government School; and that +there was in January this year, a library of between six and seven thousand +books. Ladies and gentlemen, if any man would tell me that anything +but good could come of such knowledge as this, all I can say is, that +I should consider him a new and most lamentable proof of the necessity +of such institutions, and should regard him in his own person as a melancholy +instance of what a man may come to by never having belonged to one or +sympathized with one.</p> +<p>There is one other paragraph in this report which struck my eye in +looking over it, and on which I cannot help offering a word of joyful +notice. It is the steady increase that appears to have taken place +in the number of lady members - among whom I hope I may presume are +included some of the bright fair faces that are clustered around me. +Gentlemen, I hold that it is not good for man to be alone - even in +Mechanics’ Institutions; and I rank it as very far from among +the last or least of the merits of such places, that he need not be +alone there, and that he is not. I believe that the sympathy and +society of those who are our best and dearest friends in infancy, in +childhood, in manhood, and in old age, the most devoted and least selfish +natures that we know on earth, who turn to us always constant and unchanged, +when others turn away, should greet us here, if anywhere, and go on +with us side by side.</p> +<p>I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own proper senses at this +moment, that there are charms and graces in such greetings, such as +no other greeting can possess. I know that in every beautiful +work of the Almighty hand, which is illustrated in your lectures, and +in every real or ideal portraiture of fortitude and goodness that you +find in your books, there is something that must bring you home again +to them for its brightest and best example. And therefore, gentlemen, +I hope that you will never be without them, or without an increasing +number of them in your studies and your commemorations; and that an +immense number of new marriages, and other domestic festivals naturally +consequent upon those marriages, may be traced back from time to time +to the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution.</p> +<p>There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their public +position and service, or endeared to you by frequent intercourse, or +by their zealous efforts on behalf of the cause which brings us together; +and to them I shall beg leave to refer you for further observations +on this happy and interesting occasion; begging to congratulate you +finally upon the occasion itself; upon the prosperity and thriving prospects +of your institution; and upon our common and general good fortune in +living in these times, when the means of mental culture and improvement +are presented cheaply, socially, and cheerfully, and not in dismal cells +or lonely garrets. And lastly, I congratulate myself, I assure +you most heartily, upon the part with which I am honoured on an occasion +so congenial to my warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank +you for such evidences of your good-will, as I never can coldly remember +and never forget.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr, Dickens said:-]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen, - It is a great satisfaction to me that this +question has been put by the Mayor, inasmuch as I hope I may receive +it as a token that he has forgiven me those extremely large letters, +which I must say, from the glimpse I caught of them when I arrived in +the town, looked like a leaf from the first primer of a very promising +young giant.</p> +<p>I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of this evening, +that after what I have seen, and the excellent speeches I have heard +from gentlemen of so many different callings and persuasions, meeting +here as on neutral ground, I do more strongly and sincerely believe +than I ever have in my life, - and that is saying a great deal, - that +institutions such as this will be the means of refining and improving +that social edifice which has been so often mentioned to-night, until, +- unlike that Babel tower that would have taken heaven by storm, - it +shall end in sweet accord and harmony amongst all classes of its builders.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily I bid you good +night and good-bye, and I trust the next time we meet it will be in +even greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that we often shall +meet again, to recal this evening, then of the past, and remember it +as one of a series of increasing triumphs of your excellent institution.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The first Soirée, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow +Athenaeum took place on the above evening in the City Hall. Mr. +Charles Dickens presided, and made the following speech:]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen - Let me begin by endeavouring to convey to +you the assurance that not even the warmth of your reception can possibly +exceed, in simple earnestness, the cordiality of the feeling with which +I come amongst you. This beautiful scene and your generous greeting +would naturally awaken, under any circumstances, no common feeling within +me; but when I connect them with the high purpose of this brilliant +assembly - when I regard it as an educational example and encouragement +to the rest of Scotland - when I regard it no less as a recognition +on the part of everybody here of the right, indisputable and inalienable, +of all those who are actively engaged in the work and business of life +to elevate and improve themselves so far as in them lies, by all good +means - I feel as if I stand here to swear brotherhood to all the young +men in Glasgow; - and I may say to all the young women in Glasgow; being +unfortunately in no position to take any tenderer vows upon myself - +and as if we were pledged from this time henceforth to make common cause +together in one of the most laudable and worthy of human objects.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a design +as that which brings us together this night; for without it, nothing +can be done, but with it, everything. It is a common cause of +right, God knows; for it is idle to suppose that the advantages of such +an institution as the Glasgow Athenaeum will stop within its own walls +or be confined to its own members. Through all the society of +this great and important city, upwards to the highest and downwards +to the lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good. Downward in +a clearer perception of, and sympathy with, those social miseries which +can be alleviated, and those wide-open doors to vice and crime that +can be shut and barred; and upward in a greater intelligence, increased +efficiency, and higher knowledge, of all who partake of its benefits +themselves, or who communicate, as all must do, in a greater or less +degree, some portion to the circle of relatives or friends in which +they move.</p> +<p>Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however high +his social position, or however great his attainments, that he might +not find something to be learnt even from immediate contact with such +institutions. If he only saw the goddess Knowledge coming out +of her secluded palaces and high places to mingle with the throng, and +to give them shining glimpses of the delights which were long kept hoarded +up, he might learn something. If he only saw the energy and the +courage with which those who earn their daily bread by the labour of +their hands or heads, come night after night, as to a recreation, to +that which was, perhaps, the whole absorbing business of his youth, +there might still be something very wholesome for him to learn. +But when he could see in such places their genial and reviving influences, +their substituting of the contemplation of the beauties of nature and +art, and of the wisdom of great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid +idleness - at any rate he would learn this - that it is at once the +duty and the interest of all good members of society to encourage and +protect them.</p> +<p>I took occasion to say at an Athenaeum in Yorkshire a few weeks since, +and I think it a point most important to be borne in mind on such commemorations +as these, that when such societies are objected to, or are decried on +the ground that in the views of the objectors, education among the people +has not succeeded, the term education is used with not the least reference +to its real meaning, and is wholly misunderstood. Mere reading +and writing is not education; it would be quite as reasonable to call +bricks and mortar architecture - oils and colours art - reeds and cat-gut +music - or the child’s spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, +Milton, or Bacon - as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, +and to visit on that most abused and slandered word their failure in +any instance; and precisely because they were not education; because, +generally speaking, the word has been understood in that sense a great +deal too long; because education for the business of life, and for the +due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least as important from day +to day to the grown person as to the child; because real education, +in the strife and contention for a livelihood, and the consequent necessity +incumbent on a great number of young persons to go into the world when +they are very young, is extremely difficult. It is because of +these things that I look upon mechanics’ institutions and athenaeums +as vitally important to the well-being of society. It is because +the rudiments of education may there be turned to good account in the +acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith, +and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, +I take it, that you have met in education’s name to-night.</p> +<p>It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf +of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a vigorous +constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly +fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope that I may have +the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to +its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has already +passed through some of the disorders to which children are liable; it +succeeded to an elder brother of a very meritorious character, but of +rather a weak constitution, and which expired when about twelve months +old, from, it is said, a destructive habit of getting up early in the +morning: it succeeded this elder brother, and has fought manfully through +a sea of troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned +for it; its pulse has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it +was expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have +even gone so far as to walk off once or twice in the melancholy belief +that it was dead. Through all that, assisted by the indomitable +energy of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be sufficiently grateful, +it came triumphantly, and now, of all the youthful members of its family +I ever saw, it has the strongest attitude, the healthiest look, the +brightest and most cheerful air. I find the institution nobly +lodged; I find it with a reading-room, a coffee-room, and a news-room; +I find it with lectures given and in progress, in sound, useful and +well-selected subjects; I find it with morning and evening classes for +mathematics, logic, grammar, music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, +attended by upwards of five hundred persons; but, best and first of +all and what is to me more satisfactory than anything else in the history +of the institution, I find that all, this has been mainly achieved by +the young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. +And, ladies and gentlemen, as the axiom, “Heaven helps those who +help themselves,” is truer in no case than it is in this, I look +to the young men of Glasgow, from such a past and such a present, to +a noble future. Everything that has been done in any other athenaeum, +I confidently expect to see done here; and when that shall be the case, +and when there shall be great cheap schools in connexion with the institution, +and when it has bound together for ever all its friends, and brought +over to itself all those who look upon it as an objectionable institution, +- then, and not till then, I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest +from their labours, and think their study done.</p> +<p>If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in +this wise, they have one beside them in the presence of their fair townswomen, +which is irresistible. It is a most delightful circumstance to +me, and one fraught with inestimable benefits to institutions of this +kind, that at a meeting of this nature those who in all things are our +best examples, encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. The +abstract idea of the Graces was in ancient times associated with those +arts which refine the human understanding; and it is pleasant to see +now, in the rolling of the world, the Graces popularising the practice +of those arts by their example, and adorning it with their presence.</p> +<p>I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenaeum there is a peculiar +bond of union between the institution and the fairest part of creation. +I understand that the necessary addition to the small library of books +being difficult and expensive to make, the ladies have generally resolved +to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the proceeds to this admirable +purpose; and I learn with no less pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, +in a graceful and womanly sense of the excellence of this design, has +consented that the bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. +I can only say, that if you do not find something very noble in your +books after this, you are much duller students than I take you to be. +The ladies - the single ladies, at least - however disinterested I know +they are by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of the +advantages of these books, by never marrying any but members of the +Athenaeum. It seems to me it ought to be the pleasantest library +in the world.</p> +<p>Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of some +familiar writer of fiction, “How long since I first became acquainted +with these characters; what old-fashioned friends they seem; and yet +I am not tired of them like so many other friends, nor they of me.” +In this case the books will not only possess all the attractions of +their own friendships and charms, but also the manifold - I may say +womanfold - associations connected with their donors. I can imagine +how, in fact, from these fanciful associations, some fair Glasgow widow +may be taken for the remoter one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not +forget; I can imagine how Sophia’s muff may be seen and loved, +but not by Tom Jones, going down the High Street on any winter day; +or I can imagine the student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart +of the Glasgow Athenaeum, and taking into consideration the history +of Europe without the consent of Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, +in short, how through all the facts and fictions of this library, these +ladies will be always active, and that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Age will not wither them, nor custom stale<br />Their infinite +variety.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, that +this meeting has been held at this genial season of the year, when a +new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate the +birth of that divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest knowledge +into the humblest places, and whose great system comprehended all mankind. +I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at this time of the year, when +many scattered friends and families are re-assembled, for the members +of this institution to be calling men together from all quarters, with +a brotherly view to the general good, and a view to the general improvement; +as I consider that such designs are practically worthy of the faith +we hold, and a practical remembrance of the words, “On earth peace, +and good will toward men.” I hope that every year which +dawns on your Institution, will find it richer in its means of usefulness, +and grayer-headed in the honour and respect it has gained. It +can hardly speak for itself more appropriately than in the words of +an English writer, when contemplating the English emblem of this period +of the year, the holly-tree:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of Southey’s +poem<i>, The Holly Tree</i>.</p> +<p>In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then +Mr.) Alison, Mr. Dickens said:]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Ladies and Gentlemen, - I am no stranger - and I say it with the +deepest gratitude - to the warmth of Scottish hearts; but the warmth +of your present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of acknowledging +it. I will not detain you any longer at this late hour; let it +suffice to assure you, that for taking the part with which I have been +honoured in this festival, I have been repaid a thousand-fold by your +abundant kindness, and by the unspeakable gratification it has afforded +me. I hope that, before many years are past, we may have another +meeting in public, when we shall rejoice at the immense progress your +institution will have made in the meantime, and look back upon this +night with new pleasure and satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion, +repeat most heartily and fervently the quotation of Dr. Ewing, the late +Provost of Glasgow, which Bailie Nicol Jarvie, himself “a Glasgow +body,” observed was “elegantly putten round the town’s +arms.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held +at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied +the chair, and in giving the toast of the evening said:-]</p> +<p>I have so often had the satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in +this place, to the usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose +behalf we are assembled, that I should be really sensible of the disadvantage +of having now nothing to say in proposing the toast you all anticipate, +if I were not well assured that there is really nothing which needs +be said. I have to appeal to you on the old grounds, and no ingenuity +of mine could render those grounds of greater weight than they have +hitherto successfully proved to you.</p> +<p>Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other +public societies and endowments, is represented by no building, whether +of stone, or brick, or glass, like that astonishing evidence of the +skill and energy of my friend Mr. Paxton, which all the world is now +called upon to admire, and the great merit of which, as you learn from +the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down long before +it was built, and yet that it would by no means consent to doing so +- although, I say, this Association possesses no architectural home, +it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests on as solid a foundation, +and carries as erect a front, as any building, in the world. And +the best and the utmost that its exponent and its advocate can do, standing +here, is to point it out to those who gather round it, and to say, “judge +for yourselves.”</p> +<p>It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that portion +of the company whose previous acquaintance with it may have been limited, +what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits +are confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It is a +society whose claims are always preferred in the name of the whole histrionic +art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of +theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more suited to present +theatrical requirements than a string of pack-horses would be suited +to the conveyance of traffic between London and Birmingham. It +is not a rich old gentleman, with the gout in his vitals, brushed and +got-up once a year to look as vigorous as possible, and brought out +for a public airing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews +and nieces, who afterwards double-lock the street-door upon the poor +relations. It is not a theatrical association which insists that +no actor can share its bounty who has not walked so many years on those +boards where the English tongue is never heard - between the little +bars of music in an aviary of singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan +of Avon is never admitted - that bounty which was gathered in the name +and for the elevation of an all-embracing art.</p> +<p>No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind. +This is a theatrical association, expressly adapted to the wants and +to the means of the whole theatrical profession all over England. +It is a society in which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. +It is a society which includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or +Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in +the one person, the whole King’s army. He may do the “light +business,” or the “heavy,” or the comic, or the eccentric. +He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably +persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than +his time. Or he may be the young lady’s brother in the white +gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to +listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake +hands with everybody between all the verses. Or he may be the +baron who gives the fête, and who sits uneasily on the sofa under +a canopy with the baroness while the fete is going on. Or he may +be the peasant at the fête who comes on the stage to swell the +drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass +upside down before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be +the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house where the evening +party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman who issues out of +the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. +Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy who resides for ever +in a revolving star with an occasional visit to a bower or a palace. +Or the actor may be the armed head of the witch’s cauldron; or +even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom I have observed in country +places, that he is much less like the notion formed from the description +of Hopkins than the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes. +This society, in short, says, “Be you what you may, be you actor +or actress, be your path in your profession never so high, or never +so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the means +of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren.”</p> +<p>This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to +a class of men to take care of their own interests, and giving a continuous +security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and effort. +The actor by the means of this society obtains his own right, to no +man’s wrong; and when, in old age, or in disastrous times, he +makes his claim on the institution, he is enabled to say, “I am +neither a beggar, nor a suppliant. I am but reaping what I sowed +long ago.” And therefore it is that I cannot hold out to +you that in assisting this fund you are doing an act of charity in the +common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses of that much +abused term, none have more raised my indignation than what I have heard +in this room in past times, in reference to this institution. +I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the wagoner +who has resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has <i>not</i> +stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an +act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and +this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who +are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend to +entreat from you an act of charity.</p> +<p>I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own heart, +and confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments for the actor’s +art? Not peculiarly because it is a profession often pursued, +and as it were marked, by poverty and misfortune - for other callings, +God knows, have their distresses - nor because the actor has sometimes +to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death itself, +to play his part before us - for all of us, in our spheres, have as +often to do violence to our feelings and to hide our hearts in fighting +this great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and responsibilities. +But the art of the actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful +or humorous, which we are all familiar with. If any man were to +tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply +put to him one question - whether he remembered his first play?</p> +<p>If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to that +great night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world which then +opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear favourably of the effect +upon your liberality on this occasion from our Secretary.</p> +<p>This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind - the sixth time +we have had this fine child down after dinner. His nurse, a very +worthy person of the name of Buckstone, who has an excellent character +from several places, will presently report to you that his chest is +perfectly sound, and that his general health is in the most thriving +condition. Long may it be so; long may it thrive and grow; long +may we meet (it is my sincere wish) to exchange our congratulations +on its prosperity; and longer than the line of Banquo may be that line +of figures which, as its patriotic share in the national debt, a century +hence shall be stated by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790, +its object being to administer assistance to authors of genius and learning, +who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities, or deprived, +by enfeebled faculties or declining life, of the power of literary exertion. +At the annual general meeting held at the house of the society on the +above date, the following speech was made by Mr. Charles Dickens:]</p> +<p>Sir, - I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in +the profession of literature, represents upon this committee a separate +and distinct branch of the profession, that, like</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The last rose of summer<br />Stands blooming alone,<br />While +all its companions<br />Are faded and gone,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>into the very prickly bramble-bush with which he has ingeniously +contrived to beset this question. In the remarks I have to make +I shall confine myself to four points: - 1. That the committee +find themselves in the painful condition of not spending enough money, +and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending +more. 2. That with regard to the house, it is a positive +matter of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious +was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and which +the administrators of the fund decline to recognise. 3. +That, in Mr. Bell’s endeavours to remove the Artists’ Fund +from the ground of analogy it unquestionably occupies with reference +to this fund, by reason of their continuing periodical relief to the +same persons, I beg to tell Mr. Bell what every gentleman at that table +knows - that it is the business of this fund to relieve over and over +again the same people.</p> +<p>MR. BELL: But fresh inquiry is always made first.</p> +<p>MR. C. DICKENS: I can only oppose to that statement my own experience +when I sat on that committee, and when I have known persons relieved +on many consecutive occasions without further inquiry being made. +As to the suggestion that we should select the items of expenditure +that we complain of, I think it is according to all experience that +we should first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too large. +If that be done by the meeting, then I will proceed to the selection +of the separate items. Now, in rising to support this resolution, +I may state at once that I have scarcely any expectation of its being +carried, and I am happy to think it will not. Indeed, I consider +it the strongest point of the resolution’s case that it should +not be carried, because it will show the determination of the fund’s +managers. Nothing can possibly be stronger in favour of the resolution +than that the statement should go forth to the world that twice within +twelve months the attention of the committee has been called to this +great expenditure, and twice the committee have considered that it was +not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger case for the resolution +than this statement of fact as to the expenditure going forth to the +public accompanied by the committee’s assertion that it is reasonable. +Now, to separate this question from details, let us remember what the +committee and their supporters asserted last year, and, I hope, will +re-assert this year. It seems to be rather the model kind of thing +than otherwise now that if you get £100 you are to spend £40 +in management; and if you get £1000, of course you may spend £400 +in giving the rest away. Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned +people here who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, +I will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly respectable +place of resort, Willis’s Rooms, in St. James’s, to a meeting +of this fund. My original intention was to hear all I could, and +say as little as possible. Allowing for the absence of the younger +and fairer portion of the creation, the general appearance of the place +was something like Almack’s in the morning. A number of +stately old dowagers sat in a row on one side, and old gentlemen on +the other. The ball was opened with due solemnity by a real marquis, +who walked a minuet with the secretary, at which the audience were much +affected. Then another party advanced, who, I am sorry to say, +was only a member of the House of Commons, and he took possession of +the floor. To him, however, succeeded a lord, then a bishop, then +the son of a distinguished lord, then one or two celebrities from the +City and Stock Exchange, and at last a gentleman, who made a fortune +by the success of “Candide,” sustained the part of Pangloss, +and spoke much of what he evidently believed to be the very best management +of this best of all possible funds. Now it is in this fondness +for being stupendously genteel, and keeping up fine appearances - this +vulgar and common social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any +price, that the money goes. The last time you got a distinguished +writer at a public meeting, and he was called on to address you somewhere +amongst the small hours, he told you he felt like the man in plush who +was permitted to sweep the stage down after all the other people had +gone. If the founder of this society were here, I should think +he would feel like a sort of Rip van Winkle reversed, who had gone to +sleep backwards for a hundred years and woke up to find his fund still +lying under the feet of people who did nothing for it instead of being +emancipated and standing alone long ago. This Bloomsbury house +is another part of the same desire for show, and the officer who inhabits +it. (I mean, of course, in his official capacity, for, as an individual, +I much respect him.) When one enters the house it appears to be +haunted by a series of mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide about engaged +in some extraordinary occupation, and, after the approved fashion of +ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What +are all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, +I say, as a writer by profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary +to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a preposterous +pretence, and that working literary men would have a far better knowledge +of the cases coming before the board than can ever be attained by that +committee. Further, I say openly and plainly, that this fund is +pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of +being quietly administered at small expense; and that the secrecy to +which it lays claim as its greatest attribute, is not kept; for through +those “two respectable householders,” to whom reference +must be made, the names of the most deserving applicants are to numbers +of people perfectly well known. The members have now got before +them a plain statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them +to say whether they are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg +most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong +to this institution, that must now decide, and cannot help deciding, +what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not for. The question +raised by the resolution is whether this is a public corporation for +the relief of men of genius and learning, or whether it is a snug, traditional, +and conventional party, bent upon maintaining its own usages with a +vast amount of pride; upon its own annual puffery at costly dinner-tables, +and upon a course of expensive toadying to a number of distinguished +individuals. This is the question which you cannot this day escape.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>SPEECH: LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and Clerks +Schools, which took place on Thursday evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at the +London Tavern, and was very numerously attended, Mr. Charles Dickens +occupied the chair. On the subject which had brought the company +together Mr. Dickens spoke as follows:-]</p> +<p>I must now solicit your attention for a few minutes to the cause +of your assembling together - the main and real object of this evening’s +gathering; for I suppose we are all agreed that the motto of these tables +is not “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;” but, +“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we live.” It +is because a great and good work is to live to-morrow, and to-morrow, +and to-morrow, and to live a greater and better life with every succeeding +to-morrow, that we eat and drink here at all. Conspicuous on the +card of admission to this dinner is the word “Schools.” +This set me thinking this morning what are the sorts of schools that +I don’t like. I found them on consideration, to be rather +numerous. I don’t like to begin with, and to begin as charity +does at home - I don’t like the sort of school to which I once +went myself - the respected proprietor of which was by far the most +ignorant man I have ever had the pleasure to know; one of the worst-tempered +men perhaps that ever lived, whose business it was to make as much out +of us and put as little into us as possible, and who sold us at a figure +which I remember we used to delight to estimate, as amounting to exactly +£2 4s. 6d. per head. I don’t like that sort of school, +because I don’t see what business the master had to be at the +top of it instead of the bottom, and because I never could understand +the wholesomeness of the moral preached by the abject appearance and +degraded condition of the teachers who plainly said to us by their looks +every day of their lives, “Boys, never be learned; whatever you +are, above all things be warned from that in time by our sunken cheeks, +by our poor pimply noses, by our meagre diet, by our acid-beer, and +by our extraordinary suits of clothes, of which no human being can say +whether they are snuff-coloured turned black, or black turned snuff-coloured, +a point upon which we ourselves are perfectly unable to offer any ray +of enlightenment, it is so very long since they were undarned and new.” +I do not like that sort of school, because I have never yet lost my +ancient suspicion touching that curious coincidence that the boy with +four brothers to come always got the prizes. In fact, and short, +I do not like that sort of school, which is a pernicious and abominable +humbug, altogether. Again, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t +like that sort of school - a ladies’ school - with which the other +school used to dance on Wednesdays, where the young ladies, as I look +back upon them now, seem to me always to have been in new stays and +disgrace - the latter concerning a place of which I know nothing at +this day, that bounds Timbuctoo on the north-east - and where memory +always depicts the youthful enthraller of my first affection as for +ever standing against a wall, in a curious machine of wood, which confined +her innocent feet in the first dancing position, while those arms, which +should have encircled my jacket, those precious arms, I say, were pinioned +behind her by an instrument of torture called a backboard, fixed in +the manner of a double direction post. Again, I don’t like +that sort of school, of which we have a notable example in Kent, which +was established ages ago by worthy scholars and good men long deceased, +whose munificent endowments have been monstrously perverted from their +original purpose, and which, in their distorted condition, are struggled +for and fought over with the most indecent pertinacity. Again, +I don’t like that sort of school - and I have seen a great many +such in these latter times - where the bright childish imagination is +utterly discouraged, and where those bright childish faces, which it +is so very good for the wisest among us to remember in after life - +when the world is too much with us, early and late <a name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22">{22}</a> +- are gloomily and grimly scared out of countenance; where I have never +seen among the pupils, whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots +and small calculating machines. Again, I don’t by any means +like schools in leather breeches, and with mortified straw baskets for +bonnets, which file along the streets in long melancholy rows under +the escort of that surprising British monster - a beadle, whose system +of instruction, I am afraid, too often presents that happy union of +sound with sense, of which a very remarkable instance is given in a +grave report of a trustworthy school inspector, to the effect that a +boy in great repute at school for his learning, presented on his slate, +as one of the ten commandments, the perplexing prohibition, “Thou +shalt not commit doldrum.” Ladies and gentlemen, I confess, +also, that I don’t like those schools, even though the instruction +given in them be gratuitous, where those sweet little voices which ought +to be heard speaking in very different accents, anathematise by rote +any human being who does not hold what is taught there. Lastly, +I do not like, and I did not like some years ago, cheap distant schools, +where neglected children pine from year to year under an amount of neglect, +want, and youthful misery far too sad even to be glanced at in this +cheerful assembly.</p> +<p>And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permit me to sketch +in a few words the sort of school that I do like. It is a school +established by the members of an industrious and useful order, which +supplies the comforts and graces of life at every familiar turning in +the road of our existence; it is a school established by them for the +Orphan and Necessitous Children of their own brethren and sisterhood; +it is a place giving an education worthy of them - an education by them +invented, by them conducted, by them watched over; it is a place of +education where, while the beautiful history of the Christian religion +is daily taught, and while the life of that Divine Teacher who Himself +took little children on His knees is daily studied, no sectarian ill-will +nor narrow human dogma is permitted to darken the face of the clear +heaven which they disclose. It is a children’s school, which +is at the same time no less a children’s home, a home not to be +confided to the care of cold or ignorant strangers, nor, by the nature +of its foundation, in the course of ages to pass into hands that have +as much natural right to deal with it as with the peaks of the highest +mountains or with the depths of the sea, but to be from generation to +generation administered by men living in precisely such homes as those +poor children have lost; by men always bent upon making that replacement, +such a home as their own dear children might find a happy refuge in +if they themselves were taken early away. And I fearlessly ask +you, is this a design which has any claim to your sympathy? Is +this a sort of school which is deserving of your support?</p> +<p>This is the design, this is the school, whose strong and simple claim +I have to lay before you to-night. I must particularly entreat +you not to suppose that my fancy and unfortunate habit of fiction has +anything to do with the picture I have just presented to you. +It is sober matter of fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks’ +Schools, established for the maintaining, clothing, and educating of +the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those employed in the wholesale +trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom, are, in fact, what I +have just described. These schools for both sexes were originated +only four years ago. In the first six weeks of the undertaking +the young men of themselves and quite unaided, subscribed the large +sum of £3,000. The schools have been opened only three years, +they have now on their foundation thirty-nine children, and in a few +days they will have six more, making a total of forty-five. They +have been most munificently assisted by the heads of great mercantile +houses, numerously represented, I am happy to say, around me, and they +have a funded capital of almost £14,000. This is wonderful +progress, but the aim must still be upwards, the motto always “Excelsior.” +You do not need to be told that five-and-forty children can form but +a very small proportion of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those +who have been entrusted with the wholesale trades and manufactures of +the United Kingdom: you do not require to be informed that the house +at New-cross, rented for a small term of years, in which the schools +are at present established, can afford but most imperfect accommodation +for such a breadth of design. To carry this good work through +the two remaining degrees of better and best there must be more work, +more co-operation, more friends, more money. Then be the friends +and give the money. Before I conclude, there is one other feature +in these schools which I would commend to your special attention and +approval. Their benefits are reserved for the children of subscribers; +that is to say, it is an essential principle of the institution that +it must help those whose parents have helped them, and that the unfortunate +children whose father has been so lax, or so criminal, as to withhold +a subscription so exceedingly small that when divided by weeks it amounts +to only threepence weekly, cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle +out and shoulder away the happier children, whose father has had that +little forethought, or done that little kindness which was requisite +to secure for them the benefits of the institution. I really cannot +believe that there will long be any such defaulting parents. I +cannot believe that any of the intelligent young men who are engaged +in the wholesale houses will long neglect this obvious, this easy duty. +If they suppose that the objects of their love, born or unborn, will +never want the benefits of the charity, that may be a fatal and blind +mistake - it can never be an excuse, for, supposing them to be right +in their anticipation, they should do what is asked for the sake of +their friends and comrades around them, assured that they will be the +happier and the better for the deed.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, this little “labour of love” of +mine is now done. I most heartily wish that I could charm you +now not to see me, not to think of me, not to hear me - I most heartily +wish that I could make you see in my stead the multitude of innocent +and bereaved children who are looking towards these schools, and entreating +with uplifted hands to be let in. A very famous advocate once +said, in speaking of his fears of failure when he had first to speak +in court, being very poor, that he felt his little children tugging +at his skirts, and that recovered him. Will you think of the number +of little children who are tugging at my skirts, when I ask you, in +their names, on their behalf, and in their little persons, and in no +strength of my own, to encourage and assist this work?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposed the health +of the President of the Institution, Lord John Russell. He said +he should do nothing so superfluous and so unnecessary as to descant +upon his lordship’s many faithful, long, and great public services, +upon the honour and integrity with which he had pursued his straightforward +public course through every difficulty, or upon the manly, gallant, +and courageous character, which rendered him certain, in the eyes alike +of friends and opponents, to rise with every rising occasion, and which, +like the seal of Solomon, in the old Arabian story, enclosed in a not +very large casket the soul of a giant. In answer to loud cheers, +he said he had felt perfectly certain, that that would be the response +for in no English assembly that he had ever seen was it necessary to +do more than mention the name of Lord John Russell to ensure a manifestation +of personal respect and grateful remembrance.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: LONDON, MAY 8, 1858.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The forty-eighth Anniversary of the establishment of the Artists’ +Benevolent Fund took place on the above date at the Freemasons’ +Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after +having disposed of the preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, proceeded +to advocate the claims of the Institution in whose interest the company +had assembled, in the following terms:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - There is an absurd theatrical story which +was once told to me by a dear and valued friend, who has now passed +from this sublunary stage, and which is not without its moral as applied +to myself, in my present presidential position. In a certain theatrical +company was included a man, who on occasions of emergency was capable +of taking part in the whole round of the British drama, provided he +was allowed to use his own language in getting through the dialogue. +It happened one night that Reginald, in the <i>Castle Spectre</i>, was +taken ill, and this veteran of a hundred characters was, of course, +called up for the vacant part. He responded with his usual promptitude, +although knowing nothing whatever of the character, but while they were +getting him into the dress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish to +know in some vague way what the part was about. He was not particular +as to details, but in order that he might properly pourtray his sufferings, +he thought he should have some slight inkling as to what really had +happened to him. As, for example, what murders he had committed, +whose father he was, of what misfortunes he was the victim, - in short, +in a general way to know why he was in that place at all. They +said to him, “Here you are, chained in a dungeon, an unhappy father; +you have been here for seventeen years, during which time you have never +seen your daughter; you have lived upon bread and water, and, in consequence, +are extremely weak, and suffer from occasional lowness of spirits.” +- “All right,” said the actor of universal capabilities, +“ring up.” When he was discovered to the audience, +he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was very favourably +received, and gave every sign of going on well, until, through some +mental confusion as to his instructions, he opened the business of the +act by stating in pathetic terms, that he had been confined in that +dungeon seventeen years, during which time he had not tasted a morsel +of food, to which circumstance he was inclined to attribute the fact +of his being at that moment very much out of condition. The audience, +thinking this statement exceedingly improbable, declined to receive +it, and the weight of that speech hung round him until the end of his +performance.</p> +<p>Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the honour +of performing before you, and it behoves both you and me to profit by +the terrible warning I have detailed, while I endeavour to make the +part I have undertaken as plain and intelligible as I possibly can.</p> +<p>As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect +the business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking prosperity +to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, it becomes important that we +should know what that fund is. It is an Association supported +by the voluntary gifts of those who entertain a critical and admiring +estimation of art, and has for its object the granting of annuities +to the widows and children of deceased artists - of artists who have +been unable in their lives to make any provision for those dear objects +of their love surviving themselves. Now it is extremely important +to observe that this institution of an Artists’ Benevolent Fund, +which I now call on you to pledge, has connected with it, and has arisen +out of another artists’ association, which does not ask you for +a health, which never did, and never will ask you for a health, which +is self-supporting, and which is entirely maintained by the prudence +and providence of its three hundred artist members. That fund, +which is called the Artists’ Annuity Fund, is, so to speak, a +joint and mutual Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, and +age. To the benefits it affords every one of its members has an +absolute right, a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift +and self-denial, and not assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion +of any human being. On that fund there are, if I remember a right, +some seventeen annuitants who are in the receipt of eleven hundred a-year, +the proceeds of their own self-supporting Institution. In recommending +to you this benevolent fund, which is not self-supporting, they address +you, in effect, in these words:- “We ask you to help these widows +and orphans, because we show you we have first helped ourselves. +These widows and orphans may be ours or they may not be ours; but in +any case we will prove to you to a certainty that we are not so many +wagoners calling upon Jupiter to do our work, because we do our own +work; each has his shoulder to the wheel; each, from year to year, has +had his shoulder set to the wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter +and all the gods is simply this - that this fact may be remembered when +the wagon has stopped for ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies +lifeless by the roadside.</p> +<p>“Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress +on you the strength of this appeal. I am a painter, a sculptor, +or an engraver, of average success. I study and work here for +no immense return, while life and health, while hand and eye are mine. +I prudently belong to the Annuity Fund, which in sickness, old age, +and infirmity, preserves me from want. I do my duty to those who +are depending on me while life remains; but when the grass grows above +my grave there is no provision for them any longer.”</p> +<p>This is the case with the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, and in +stating this I am only the mouthpiece of three hundred of the trade, +who in truth stands as independent before you as if they were three +hundred Cockers all regulated by the Gospel according to themselves. +There are in existence three artists’ funds, which ought never +to be mentioned without respect. I am an officer of one of them, +and can speak from knowledge; but on this occasion I address myself +to a case for which there is no provision. I address you on behalf +of those professors of the fine arts who have made provision during +life, and in submitting to you their claims I am only advocating principles +which I myself have always maintained.</p> +<p>When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to gentility, +squanders no treasure in keeping up appearances, that it considers that +the money given for the widow and the orphan, should really be held +for the widow and the orphan, I think I have exhausted the case, which +I desire most strenuously to commend to you.</p> +<p>Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I will not +consent to present to you the professors of Art as a set of helpless +babies, who are to be held up by the chin; I present them as an energetic +and persevering class of men, whose incomes depend on their own faculties +and personal exertions; and I also make so bold as to present them as +men who in their vocation render good service to the community. +I am strongly disposed to believe there are very few debates in Parliament +so important to the public welfare as a really good picture. I +have also a notion that any number of bundles of the driest legal chaff +that ever was chopped would be cheaply expended for one really meritorious +engraving. At a highly interesting annual festival at which I +have the honour to assist, and which takes place behind two fountains, +I sometimes observe that great ministers of state and other such exalted +characters have a strange delight in rather ostentatiously declaring +that they have no knowledge whatever of art, and particularly of impressing +on the company that they have passed their lives in severe studies. +It strikes me when I hear these things as if these great men looked +upon the arts as a sort of dancing dogs, or Punch’s show, to be +turned to for amusement when one has nothing else to do. Now I +always take the opportunity on these occasions of entertaining my humble +opinion that all this is complete “bosh;” and of asserting +to myself my strong belief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar Square, +or Suffolk Street, rightly understood, are quite as important to the +welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, or Westminster Hall. +Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and backed by the recommendation +of three hundred artists in favour of the Benevolent Fund, I beg to +propose its prosperity as a toast for your adoption.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: THE FAREWELL READING. ST. JAMES’S HALL, MARCH +15, 1870.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[With the “Christmas Carol” and “The Trial from +Pickwick,” Mr. Charles Dickens brought to a brilliant close the +memorable series of public readings which have for sixteen years proved +to audiences unexampled in numbers, the source of the highest intellectual +enjoyment. Every portion of available space in the building was, +of course, last night occupied some time before the appointed hour; +but could the St. James’s Hall have been specially enlarged for +the occasion to the dimensions of Salisbury Plain, it is doubtful whether +sufficient room would even then have been provided for all anxious to +seize the last chance of hearing the distinguished novelist give his +own interpretation of the characters called into existence by his own +creative pen. As if determined to convince his auditors that, +whatever reason had influenced his determination, physical exhaustion +was not amongst them, Mr. Dickens never read with greater spirit and +energy. His voice to the last retained its distinctive clearness, +and the transitions of tone, as each personage in the story, conjured +up by a word, rose vividly before the eye, seemed to be more marvellous +than ever. The vast assemblage, hushed into breathless attention, +suffered not a syllable to escape the ear, and the rich humour and deep +pathos of one of the most delightful books ever written found once again +the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of merriment responsive +to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit’s Christmas day, and +the wonted sympathy with the crippled child “Tiny Tim,” +found prompt expression, and the general delight at hearing of Ebenezer +Scrooge’s reformation was only checked by the saddening remembrance +that with it the last strain of the “carol” was dying away. +After the “Trial from Pickwick,” in which the speeches of +the opposing counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge, seemed to +be delivered and depicted with greater dramatic power than ever, the +applause of the audience rang for several minutes through the hall, +and when it had subsided, Mr. Dickens, with evidently strong emotion, +but in his usual distinct and expressive manner, spoke as follows:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - It would be worse than idle - for it would +be hypocritical and unfeeling - if I were to disguise that I close this +episode in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For +some fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I have +had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your +recognition, and, in closely observing your reception of them, have +enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction which, perhaps, +is given to few men to know. In this task, and in every other +I have ever undertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, always +imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best, +I have been uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous +sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have +thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon +those older associations between us, which date from much further back +than these, and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art that +first brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short +weeks from this time I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on +a new series of readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; +<a name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23">{23}</a> but from these +garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, +respectful, and affectionate farewell.</p> +<p>[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic description, +whilst hats and handkerchiefs were waving in every part of the hall, +Mr. Charles Dickens retired, withdrawing with him one of the greatest +intellectual treats the public ever enjoyed.]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: THE NEWSVENDORS’ INSTITUTION, LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the Newsvendors’ +Benevolent and Provident Institution was held on the above evening, +at the Freemason’s Tavern. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, +and was supported by the Sheriffs of the City of London and Middlesex.</p> +<p>After the usual toasts had been given and responded to,</p> +<p>The Chairman said that if the approved order of their proceedings +had been observed, the Corporation of the City of London would no doubt +have considered themselves snubbed if they were not toasted by themselves. +He was sure that a distinguished member of the Corporation who was present +would tell the company what the Corporation were going to do; and he +had not the slightest doubt they were going to do something highly creditable +to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the whole metropolis; +and if the secret were not at present locked up in the blue chamber, +they would be all deeply obliged to the gentleman who would immediately +follow him, if he let them into it in the same confidence as he had +observed with respect to the Corporation of the City of London being +snubbed. He begged to give the toast of “The Corporation +of the City of London.”</p> +<p>Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, said for once, and +once only, had their chairman said an unkind word about the Corporation +of London. He had always reckoned Mr. Dickens to be one of the +warmest friends of the Corporation; and remembering that he (Mr. +Dickens) did really go through a Lord Mayor’s Show in a Lord Mayor’s +carriage, if he had not felt himself quite a Lord Mayor, he must have +at least considered himself next to one.</p> +<p>In proposing the toast of the evening Mr, Dickens said:-]</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, - You receive me with so much cordiality that +I fear you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s +state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information +received from Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour. +Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed a Lord Mayor’s +show except from the point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon +the pavement. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great +cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it +is to you that I occupy this chair to-night, because, having filled +it on several previous occasions for the society on whose behalf we +are assembled, and having said everything that I could think of to say +about it, and being, moreover, the president of the institution itself, +I am placed to-night in the modest position of a host who is not so +much to display himself as to call out his guests - perhaps even to +try to induce some among them to occupy his place on another occasion. +And, therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but with +a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be +the cause of speaking in others than to speak myself to-night. +Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy +of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having apparently +taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of +which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step +in and try what they can do in the same line.</p> +<p>It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman’s +calling that no toast we have drunk to-night - and no toast we shall +drink to-night - and no toast we might, could, should, or would drink +to-night, is separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all +possible subjects of human interest which he delivers at our doors every +day. Further, it may be worthy the consideration of everybody +here who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour since we have +sat down at the table, what in the name of Heaven should we have talked +about, and how on earth could we have possibly got on, if our newsman +had only for one single day forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, +as our newsman is not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let +us try to form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let +us remember that his work is very arduous; that it occupies him early +and late; that the profits he derives from us are at the best very small; +that the services he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, +his little capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, anxieties, +and hazards; and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to all +manner of weathers, of tempers, and of difficult and unreasonable requirements.</p> +<p>Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, +which originated by chance. The subject was, What was the most +absorbing and longest-lived passion in the human breast? What +was the passion so powerful that it would almost induce the generous +to be mean, the careless to be cautious, the guileless to be deeply +designing, and the dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor +of vast experience and great acuteness, who was one of the company, +considerably surprised us by saying with the greatest confidence that +the passion in question was the passion of getting orders for the play.</p> +<p>There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of the +surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these on +making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper office, +with his story of how he had seen the ship go down before his eyes. +That young man had witnessed the most terrible contention between the +powers of fire and water for the destruction of that ship and of every +one on board. He had rowed away among the floating, dying, and +the sinking dead. He had floated by day, and he had frozen by +night, with no shelter and no food, and, as he told his dismal tale, +he rolled his haggard eyes about the room. When he had finished, +and the tale had been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed, +and soothed, and asked if anything could be done for him. Even +within him that master passion was so strong that he immediately replied +he should like an order for the play. My friend the editor certainly +thought that was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many +years of experience he had witnessed an incurable amount of self-prostration +and abasement having no outer object, and that almost invariably on +the part of people who could well afford to pay.</p> +<p>This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this +faith until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I was kindly +escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of-the-way town +it represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman, to whom I propounded, +as we went along under my umbrella - he being most excellent company +- this old question, what was the one all-absorbing passion of the human +soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it certainly +was the passion for getting your newspaper in advance of your fellow-creatures; +also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door at +exactly the same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles +off; and, finally, the invincible determination on the part of both +men not to believe the time was up when the boy called.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying +this experience with my friends of the managing committee, but I have +no doubt from its reception to-night that my friend the newsman was +perfectly right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a sufficiently dark +life, and as an assurance that among a little body of working men there +is a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy - which is worth much to all +men, or they would herd with wolves - the newsvendors once upon a time +established the Benevolent and Provident Institution, and here it is. +Under the Provident head, certain small annuities are granted to old +and hard-working subscribers. Under the Benevolent head, relief +is afforded to temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, +I am bound to say the help rendered is very humble and very sparing, +but if you like it to be handsomer you have it in your power to make +it so. Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does +a deal of good. Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly +administered; and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for management +or patronage.</p> +<p>You know upon an old authority, that you may believe anything except +facts and figures, but you really may believe that during the last year +we have granted £100 in pensions, and some £70 in temporary +relief, and we have invested in Government securities some £400. +But, touching this matter of investments, it was suggested at the anniversary +dinner, on the high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips that +we might grant more pensions and invest less money. We urged, +on the other hand, that we wished our pensions to be certain and unchangeable +- which of course they must be if they are always paid out of our Government +interest and never out of our capital. However, so amiable is +our nature, that we profess our desire to grant more pensions and to +invest more money too. The more you give us to-night again, so +amiable is our nature, the more we promise to do in both departments. +That the newsman’s work has greatly increased, and that it is +far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you may infer from +one fact, not to mention that we live in railway times. It is +stated in Mitchell’s “Newspaper Press Directory,” +that during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers which +appeared in London had more than doubled, while the increase in the +number of people among whom they were disseminated was probably beyond +calculation.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman’s simple case. +I leave it in your hands. Within the last year the institution +has had the good fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support +of the eminent man of letters I am proud to call my friend, <a name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24">{24}</a> +who now represents the great Republic of America at the British Court. +Also it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors and vice-presidents +the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose to you to drink +“Prosperity to the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident +Institution.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: MACREADY. LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr. +Macready entertained him at a public dinner. Upwards of six hundred +gentlemen assembled to do honour to the great actor on his retirement +from the stage. Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among the +other speakers were Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr. Thackeray, +Mr. John Forster, Mr. W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles Dickens, who proposed +“The Health of the Chairman” in the following words:-]</p> +<p>Gentlemen, - After all you have already heard, and so rapturously +received, I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind welcome +would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence +in the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my reliance +on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I am rather +encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on which I have +to throw my little shadow.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites essential +to the perfect realisation of a scene so unusual and so splendid as +that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I must say +very difficult requisite, is a man possessing the stronghold in the +general remembrance, the indisputable claim on the general regard and +esteem, which is possessed by my dear and much valued friend our guest. +The second requisite is the presence of a body of entertainers, - a +great multitude of hosts so cheerful and good-humoured (under, I am +sorry to say, some personal inconvenience), - so warm-hearted and so +nobly in earnest, as those whom I have the privilege of addressing. +The third, and certainly not the least of these requisites, is a president +who, less by his social position, which he may claim by inheritance, +or by fortune, which may have been adventitiously won, and may be again +accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent +the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those +who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have +found in our chairman of to-night, and I need scarcely add that our +chairman’s health is the toast I have to propose to you.</p> +<p>Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that memorable +scene on Wednesday night last, <a name="citation25"></a><a href="#footnote25">{25}</a> +when the great vision which had been a delight and a lesson, - very +often, I daresay, a support and a comfort to you, which had for many +years improved and charmed us, and to which we had looked for an elevated +relief from the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. +I will not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked +backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remote and +distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off likeness to a +certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once served. Nor will +I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in the audience +of Wednesday to seize upon the words -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“And I have brought,<br />Golden opinions from all sorts of +people,<br />Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,<br />Not +cast aside so soon - ” <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26">{26}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how +in my mind I mainly connect that occasion with the present. When +I looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit hushed +into stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty surging +gallery, where men in their shirt-sleeves had been striking out their +arms like strong swimmers - when I saw that. boisterous human flood +become still water in a moment, and remain so from the opening to the +end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the trustworthiness +of an English crowd, and the delusion under which those labour who are +apt to disparage and malign it: it suggested to me that in meeting here +to-night we undertook to represent something of the all-pervading feeling +of that crowd, through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed +lady, with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, +to the half-undressed gentleman; who bides his time to take some refreshment +in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that +no one who could possibly be placed in this chair could so well head +that comprehensive representation, and could so well give the crowning +grace to our festivities, as one whose comprehensive genius has in his +various works embraced them all, and who has, in his dramatic genius, +enchanted and enthralled them all at once.</p> +<p>Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have heard +this night, what I have seen and known in the bygone times of Mr. Macready’s +management, of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of +the association of his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready’s +zealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted me to say what, +in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in the path we +both tread I have uniformly found him from the first the most generous +of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert +the order of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to +shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might +leave his slippers outside a mosque.</p> +<p>There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the effect +that authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not invariably +and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I must concede +half-a-grain or so of truth I to that superstition; but this I know, +that there can hardly be - that there hardly can have been - among the +followers of literature, a man of more high standing farther above these +little grudging jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, +than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.</p> +<p>And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my testimony +to his great consideration for those evils which are sometimes unfortunately +attendant upon it, though not on him. For, in conjunction with +some other gentlemen now present, I have just embarked in a design with +Sir Bulwer Lytton, to smoothe the rugged way of young labourers, both +in literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary +means, the declining years of meritorious age. And if that project +prosper as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will one day be +an honour to England where there is now a reproach; originating in his +sympathies, being brought into operation by his activity, and endowed +from its very cradle by his generosity. There are many among you +who will have each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman’s +health, resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified successes. +According to the nature of your reading, some of you will connect him +with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will connect +him with comedy, and another with the romantic passions of the stage, +and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest struggle against those</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“twin gaolers of the human heart,<br />Low birth and iron fortune.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Again, another’s taste will lead him to the contemplation of +Rienzi and the streets of Rome; another’s to the rebuilt and repeopled +streets of Pompeii; another’s to the touching history of the fireside +where the Caxton family learned how to discipline their natures and +tame their wild hopes down. But, however various their feelings +and reasons may be, I am sure that with one accord each will help the +other, and all will swell the greeting, with which I shall now propose +to you “The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: SANITARY REFORM. LONDON, MAY 10, 1851.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The members and friends of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association +dined together on the above evening at Gore House, Kensington. +The Earl of Carlisle occupied the chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was +present, and in proposing “The Board of Health,” made the +following speech:-]</p> +<p>There are very few words for me to say upon the needfulness of sanitary +reform, or the consequent usefulness of the Board of Health. That +no man can estimate the amount of mischief grown in dirt, - that no +man can say the evil stops here or stops there, either in its moral +or physical effects, or can deny that it begins in the cradle and is +not at rest in the miserable grave, is as certain as it is that the +air from Gin Lane will be carried by an easterly wind into Mayfair, +or that the furious pestilence raging in St. Giles’s no mortal +list of lady patronesses can keep out of Almack’s. Fifteen +years ago some of the valuable reports of Mr. Chadwick and Dr. Southwood +Smith, strengthening and much enlarging my knowledge, made me earnest +in this cause in my own sphere; and I can honestly declare that the +use I have since that time made of my eyes and nose have only strengthened +the conviction that certain sanitary reforms must precede all other +social remedies, and that neither education nor religion can do anything +useful until the way has been paved for their ministrations by cleanliness +and decency.</p> +<p>I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heard the speech +of the right reverend prelate <a name="citation27"></a><a href="#footnote27">{27}</a> +this evening - a speech which no sanitary reformer can have heard without +emotion. Of what avail is it to send missionaries to the miserable +man condemned to work in a foetid court, with every sense bestowed upon +him for his health and happiness turned into a torment, with every month +of his life adding to the heap of evils under which he is condemned +to exist? What human sympathy within him is that instructor to +address? what natural old chord within him is he to touch? Is +it the remembrance of his children? - a memory of destitution, of sickness, +of fever, and of scrofula? Is it his hopes, his latent hopes of +immortality? He is so surrounded by and embedded in material filth, +that his soul cannot rise to the contemplation of the great truths of +religion. Or if the case is that of a miserable child bred and +nurtured in some noisome, loathsome place, and tempted, in these better +days, into the ragged school, what can a few hours’ teaching effect +against the ever-renewed lesson of a whole existence? But give +them a glimpse of heaven through a little of its light and air; give +them water; help them to be clean; lighten that heavy atmosphere in +which their spirits flag and in which they become the callous things +they are; take the body of the dead relative from the close room in +which the living live with it, and where death, being familiar, loses +its awe; and then they will be brought willingly to hear of Him whose +thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all +human suffering.</p> +<p>The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is entitled +to all the honour which can be conferred upon it. We have very +near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very great +thing can ever be accomplished without an immense amount of abuse being +heaped upon it. In connexion with the Board of Health we are always +hearing a very large word which is always pronounced with a very great +relish - the word centralization. Now I submit that in the time +of the cholera we had a pretty good opportunity of judging between this +so called centralization and what I may, I think, call “vestrylisation.” +I dare say the company present have read the reports of the Cholera +Board of Health, and I daresay they have also read reports of certain +vestries. I have the honour of belonging to a constituency which +elected that amazing body, the Marylebone vestry, and I think that if +the company present will look to what was done by the Board of Health +at Glasgow, and then contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness +with which affairs were managed at the same period by my vestry, there +will be very little difficulty in judging between them. My vestry +even took upon itself to deny the existence of cholera as a weak invention +of the enemy, and that denial had little or no effect in staying the +progress of the disease. We can now contrast what centralization +is as represented by a few noisy and interested gentlemen, and what +centralization is when worked out by a body combining business habits, +sound medical and social knowledge, and an earnest sympathy with the +sufferings of the working classes.</p> +<p>Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in a word not +so large as the other, - “Delay.” I would suggest, +in respect to this, that it would be very unreasonable to complain that +a first-rate chronometer didn’t go when its master had not wound +it up. The Board of Health may be excellently adapted for going +and very willing and anxious to go, and yet may not be permitted to +go by reason of its lawful master having fallen into a gentle slumber +and forgotten to set it a going. One of the speakers this evening +has referred to Lord Castlereagh’s caution “not to halloo +until they were out of the wood.” As regards the Board of +Trade I would suggest that they ought not to halloo until they are out +of the Woods and Forests. In that leafy region the Board of Health +suffers all sorts of delays, and this should always be borne in mind. +With the toast of the Board of Health I will couple the name of a noble +lord (Ashley), of whose earnestness in works of benevolence, no man +can doubt, and who has the courage on all occasions to face the cant +which is the worst and commonest of all - the cant about the cant of +philanthropy.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[At the anniversary dinner of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution, +held under the presidency of Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton, Mr. +Charles Dickens made the following speech:-]</p> +<p>I feel an unbounded and delightful interest in all the purposes and +associations of gardening. Probably there is no feeling in the +human mind stronger than the love of gardening. The prisoner will +make a garden in his prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in the +chink of a wall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet bean +from one side of his window to the other, and watch it and tend it with +unceasing interest. It is a holy duty in foreign countries to +decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, and here, too, the resting-places +of those who have passed away from us will soon be gardens. From +that old time when the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the +evening, down to the day when a Poet-Laureate sang -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,<br />From yon blue heaven above +us bent<br />The gardener Adam and his wife<br />Smile at the claims +of long descent,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst the objects +of the greatest interest to mankind. There may be a few, but I +believe they are but a few, who take no interest in the products of +gardening, except perhaps in “London Pride,” or a certain +degenerate kind of “Stock,” which is apt to grow hereabouts, +cultivated by a species of frozen-out gardeners whom no thaw can ever +penetrate: except these, the gardeners’ art has contributed to +the delight of all men in their time. That there ought to be a +Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners is in the fitness of +things, and that such an institution ought to flourish and does flourish +is still more so.</p> +<p>I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who is a +great gardener, and not only a great gardener but a great man - the +growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated up with a power of intellect +to a plant that is at this time the talk of the civilized world - I +allude, of course, to my friend the chairman of the day. I took +occasion to say at a public assembly hard-by, a month or two ago, in +speaking of that wonderful building Mr. Paxton has designed for the +Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen down, but +that it refused to do so. We were told that the glass ought to +have been all broken, the gutters all choked up, and the building flooded, +and that the roof and sides ought to have been blown away; in short +that everything ought to have done what everything obstinately persisted +in not doing. Earth, air, fire, and water all appear to have conspired +together in Mr. Paxton’s favour - all have conspired together +to one result, which, when the present generation is dust, will be an +enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy, the talent, and the +resources of Englishmen.</p> +<p>“But,” said a gentleman to me the other day, “no +doubt Mr. Paxton is a great man, but there is one objection to him that +you can never get over, that is, he is a gardener.” Now +that is our case to-night, that he is a gardener, and we are extremely +proud of it. This is a great age, with all its faults, when a +man by the power of his own genius and good sense can scale such a daring +height as Mr. Paxton has reached, and composedly place his form on the +top. This is a great age, when a man impressed with a useful idea +can carry out his project without being imprisoned, or thumb-screwed, +or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that you, to +whom the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the achievements +of our friend are well known, should be anxious to do him honour by +placing him in the position he occupies to-night; and I assure you, +you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in permitting +him to have the opportunity of proposing his health, which that friend +now does most cordially and with all the honours.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SPEECH: THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. LONDON, MAY 2, 1870.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in +their new galleries in Piccadilly, the President, Sir F. Grant, and +the council gave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very distinguished +company was present. The dinner took place in the large central +room, and covers were laid for 200 guests. The Prince of Wales +acknowledged the toast of his health and that of the Princess, the Duke +of Cambridge responded to the toast of the army, Mr. Childers to the +navy, Lord Elcho to the volunteers, Mr. Motley to “The Prosperity +of the United States,” Mr. Gladstone to “Her Majesty’s +Ministers,” the Archbishop of York to, “The Guests,” +and Mr. Dickens to “Literature.” The last toast having +been proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens responded.]</p> +<p>Mr. President, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen, - I +beg to acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great honour +of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of the +brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not forgetting an illustrious +wanderer from the fold, whose tardy return to it we all hail with delight, +and who now sits - or lately did sit - within a few chairs of or on +your left hand. I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast +on behalf of the sisterhood of literature also, although that “better +half of human nature,” to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful +tribute, is unworthily represented here, in the present state of its +rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, man.</p> +<p>All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that women, +even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great +distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men. Their +emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there +is no saying how soon they may “push us from our stools” +at these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing +in this place of mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressing +another better half of human nature sitting in the president’s +chair.</p> +<p>The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me to +congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which +risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise of +a brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They naturally +see with especial interest the writings and persons of great men - historians, +philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly illustrated around them +here. And they hope that they may modestly claim to have rendered +some little assistance towards the production of many of the pictures +in this magnificent gallery. For without the patient labours of +some among them unhistoric history might have long survived in this +place, and but for the researches and wandering of others among them, +the most preposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and the +absurdest superstitions, manners, and customs, might have usurped the +place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir +Francis Grant, what unlike portraits you yourself might have painted +if you had been left, with your sitters, to idle pens, unchecked reckless +rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence.</p> +<p>I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme +(the recent death of Daniel Maclise) to which his Royal Highness the +Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the president referred with +the eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first entered the public +lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune to number +amongst my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy +who have been its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my +side one by one that I already, begin to feel like the Spanish monk +of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities +around him were the pictures which he loved, and that all the moving +life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream.</p> +<p>For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and most +constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in +his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious +fertility of mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently +assert that they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least +as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest +of men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, +and the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a +sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of +his vocation, without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural +at the last as at the first, “in wit a man, simplicity a child,” +no artist, of whatsoever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went +to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having +devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the art goddess whom he worshipped.</p> +<p>[These were the last public words of Charles Dickens.]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Sir David +Wilkie died at sea, on board the <i>Oriental</i>, off Gibraltar, on +the 1st of June, 1841, whilst on his way back to England. During +the evening of the same day his body was committed to the deep. +- ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> The <i>Britannia</i> +was the vessel that conveyed Mr. Dickens across the Atlantic, on his +first visit to America - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> <i>Master +Humphrey’s Clock</i>, under which title the two novels of Barnaby +Rudge and The Old Curiosity Shop originally appeared. - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> “I +shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection of +Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, +whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no +little regret.” <i>American Notes</i> (Lond. 1842). +Vol. I, p. 182.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> See the +<i>Life and Letters of Washington Irving</i> (Lond. 1863), p. 644, where +Irving speaks of a letter he has received “from that glorious +fellow Dickens, in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my heartfelt +delight with his writings, and my yearnings toward himself.” +See also the letter itself, in the second division of this volume. - +ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> <i>TENNYSON, +Lady Clara Vere de Vere</i>, then newly published in collection of 1842. +- ED</p> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> “That +this meeting, while conveying its cordial thanks to Charles Dickens, +Esq., for his presence this evening, and for his able and courteous +conduct as President, cannot separate without tendering the warmest +expression of its gratitude and admiration to one whose writings have +so loyally inculcated the lessons of benevolence and virtue, and so +richly contributed to the stores of public pleasure and instructions.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> The Duke +of Devonshire.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9">{9}</a> <i>Charlotte +Corday going to Execution.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10">{10}</a> The +above is extracted from Mrs. Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of +Foreign Lands,”, a book in which her eaves-dropping propensities +were already developed in a sufficiently ugly form. - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11">{11}</a> Alas! +the “many years” were to be barely six, when the speaker +was himself destined to write some memorial pages commemorative of his +illustrious friend (Cornhill Magazine, February, 1864.) - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a> Mr. +Henry Dodd had proposed to give five acres of land in Berkshire, but, +in consequence of his desiring to attach certain restrictions, after +a long and unsatisfactory correspondence, the Committee, on 13th January +following, rejected the offer. (<i>Communicated</i>.)</p> +<p><a name="footnote13"></a><a href="#citation13">{13}</a> Claude +Melnotte in <i>The Lady of Lyons</i>, Act iii. sc. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14">{14}</a> Mr. +B. Webster.</p> +<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15">{15}</a> <i>Romeo +and Juliet</i>, Act III. Sc. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16">{16}</a> Robert +Browning: <i>Bells and Pomegranates.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17">{17}</a> R. +H.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18">{18}</a> <i>Carlyle’s +French Revolution</i>. Book X., Chapter I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19">{19}</a> Henry +Thomas Buckle.</p> +<p><a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20">{20}</a> This +and the Speeches which follow were accidentally omitted in their right +places.</p> +<p><a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21">{21}</a> Hazlitt’s +Round Table (Edinburgh, 1817, vol ii., p. 242), <i>On Actors and Acting.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22">{22}</a> An +allusion to a well-known Sonnet of Wordsworth, beginning - “The +world is too much with us - late and soon,” &c. - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23">{23}</a> Alluding +to the forthcoming serial story of <i>Edwin Drood.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24">{24}</a> The +Honourable John Lothrop Motley.</p> +<p><a name="footnote25"></a><a href="#citation25">{25}</a> February +26th, 1851. Mr. Macready’s Farewell Benefit at Drury Lane +Theatre, on which occasion he played the part of Macbeth. - ED.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26">{26}</a> MACBETH, +Act I., sc. 7.</p> +<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27">{27}</a> The +Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Longley).</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>End of the Project Gutenberg eBook The Speeches of Charles Dickens</p> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named dslas10h.htm or dslas10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, dslas11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, dslas10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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