Speeches: Literary and Social | Page 8

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