any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be re-published, as
an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I
have referred to America. And this I will do and cause to be done,
not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an
act of plain justice and honour.
Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest
in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a
natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object.
I was asked in this very city, about last Christmas time, whether
an American was not at some disadvantage in England as a foreigner.
The notion of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner
at all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in that
character, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd to me, that my
gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was
restored, I said that for years and years past I hoped I had had as
many American friends and had received as many American visitors as
almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience,
fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be an
American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition
anywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenly spoke out
two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art,
who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a
certain historical English castle, famous for its pictures, was
refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the
establishment on that day, but who, on merely representing that he
was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the
picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his immediate
disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London, and having a
great desire to see the famous reading-room of the British Museum,
was assured by the English family with whom she stayed that it was
unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week,
and she had only three days there. Upon that lady’s going to the
Museum, as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an
American lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am
unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young and
exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution is of an
obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him,
not very impressible.
Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance
to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to
do, to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself,
has no previous conceptions to contend against. Points of
difference there have been, points of difference there are, points
of difference there probably always will be between the two great
peoples. But broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that those
two peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with them
jointly to uphold the great Anglo-Saxon race, to which our
president has referred, and all its great achievements before the
world. And if I know anything of my countrymen – and they give me
credit for knowing something – if I know anything of my countrymen,
gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those
Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies
except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation
towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute
recommended that lovers should begin, with “a little aversion,” but
with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little
sensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, or the
little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be,
take my word for it, that the first enduring, great, popular
consideration in England is a generous construction of justice.
Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do
Page 84
Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides,