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
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
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