Speeches: Literary and Social | Page 2

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