Read "Speeches. Literary and Social" by Charles Dickens online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary farewell dinner was given to Mr. Dickens at the Freemasons' Tavern on the occasion of his revisiting the United States of America. Lord Lytton officiated as chairman, and proposed as a toast-"A Prosperous Voyage, Health, and Long Life to our Illustrious Guest and Countryman, Charles Dickens". The toast was drunk with all the honours, and one cheer more. Mr. Dickens then rose, and spoke as follows: ]
NO thanks that I can offer you can express my sense of my reception by this great assemblage, or can in the least suggest to you how deep the glowing words of my friend the chairman, and your acceptance of them, have sunk into my heart. But both combined have so greatly shaken the composure which I am used to command before an audience, that I hope you may observe in me some traces of an eloquence more expressive than the richest words. To say that I am fervently grateful to you is to say nothing; to say that I can never forget this beautiful sight, is to say nothing; to say that it brings upon me a rush of emotion not only in the present, but in the thought of its remembrance in the future by those who are dearest to me, is to say nothing; but to feel all this for the moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio says of the wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, that-"Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."