Speeches. Literary and Social by Charles Dickens

[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast of "Health, happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens," having been proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with great applause, Mr. Dickens responded with the following address: ]

GENTLEMEN,-If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone else in the whole wide world-if I were to-night to exult in the triumph of my dearest friend-if I stood here upon my defence, to repel any unjust attack-to appeal as a stranger to your generosity and kindness as the freest people on the earth-I could, putting some restraint upon myself, stand among you as self-possessed and unmoved as I should be alone in my own room in England. But when I have the echoes of your cordial greeting ringing in my ears; when I see your kind faces beaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never man had-I feel, it is my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I have hardly fortitude enough to thank you.