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
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
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