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
Page 6
Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
– 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.