Speeches: Literary and Social

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.