there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for
this globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun
by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that
it should present the spectacle of these two great nations, each of
which has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so
successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one against
the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your president enough or you
enough for your kind reception of my health, and of my poor
remarks, but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost fervour of
which my soul is capable.
SPEECH: NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868.
[Mr. Dickens’s last Reading in the United States was given at the
Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was about to
retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came
forward and spoke thus:-]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, – The shadow of one word has impended over me
this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must
fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is
not measured by their length, and two much shorter words express
the round of our human existence. When I was reading “David
Copperfield” a few evenings since, I felt there was more than usual
significance in the words of Peggotty, “My future life lies over
the sea.” And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly
that I was shortly to establish such an ALIBI as would have
satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been
set up between us, while they have involved for me something more
than mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the
readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.
Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, however,
that you will not pass from my mind. I shall often realise you as
I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English
summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public
audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with
the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and
gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God bless you, and God bless
the land in which I leave you.
SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869.
[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet
held in his honour at St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, after his
health had been proposed by Lord Dufferin.]
MR. MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, although I have been so well
accustomed of late to the sound of my own voice in this
neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion
is, believe me, very, very different in respect of those
overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to
me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from hearing him in
public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when he
was quite alone – so you can form no conception, from the specimen
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and
again in some of the innermost moments of my future life. Often
and often, then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant
scene, and will re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I, faithful to
this place in its present aspect, will observe it exactly as it
stands – not one man’s seat empty, not one woman’s fair face
absent, while life and memory abide by me.
Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so
eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful
and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit
to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a
moment’s untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built
upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind,
after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers
in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to