“gardener Adam and his wife,”
the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture of flowers
there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary or exclusive.
The wind that blows over the cottager’s porch, sweeps also over the
grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain descends on the just and on the
unjust, so it communicates to all gardeners, both rich and poor, an
interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man,
in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is,
in some sort, the gardener of everybody else.
The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and all
periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace and men of
war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The most ancient
people of the earth had gardens where there is now nothing but solitary
heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded cities gardens still in jugs and
basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; and even
the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years
of solitary confinement. Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes
and objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the
world’s remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort.
I will call upon you to drink “Prosperity to the Gardeners’ Benevolent
Institution,” and I beg to couple with that toast the name of its noble
President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his
deeds, and who has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre
which no title and no riches could confer.
* * * * *
[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:—]
My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I could wish
there were a closer parallel between myself and the American aloe. It is
particularly agreeable and appropriate to know that the parents of this
Institution are to be found in the seed and nursery trade; and the seed
having yielded such good fruit, and the nursery having produced such a
healthy child, I have the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of
the parents of the Institution.
* * * * *
[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:—]
My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that its
conventional gardeners are always jolly, and always three in number.
Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three Graces, or to
those very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not know. Those mystic
letters are, however, most important, and no society can have officers of
more importance than its Treasurers, nor can it possibly give them too
much to do.
X.
BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853.
[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, in
Temple Row, Birmingham, a large company assembled to witness the
presentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of a
silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the
tribute, and the address which accompanied it, in the following words:—]
GENTLEMEN, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, to tender my
acknowledgments to you, and through you, to those many friends of mine
whom you represent, for this honour and distinction which you have
conferred upon me. I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the
power of no great representative of numbers of people to awaken such
happiness in me as is inspired by this token of goodwill and remembrance,
coming to me direct and fresh from the numbers themselves. I am truly
sensible, gentlemen, that my friends who have united in this address are
partial in their kindness, and regard what I have done with too great
favour. But I may say, with reference to one class—some members of
which, I presume, are included there—that I should in my own eyes be very
unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous feeling which has
been evinced, and this occasion, instead of pleasure, would give me
nothing but pain, if I was unable to assure them, and those who are in
front of this assembly, that what the working people have found me
towards them in my books, I am throughout my life. Gentlemen, whenever I
have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience,
gentleness, the reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to
persuasion, and their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have
done so because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and
have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to
communicate to others.
Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all price to
me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful specimens of the
workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I assure you, and with the
liveliest gratitude. You remember something, I daresay, of the old
romantic stories of those charmed rings which would lose their brilliance
when their wearer was in danger, or would press his finger reproachfully
when he was going to do wrong. In the very improbable event of my being
in the least danger of deserting the principles which have won me these
tokens, I am sure the diamond in that ring would assume a clouded aspect
to my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze a throb of pain out of my
treacherous heart. But I have not the least misgiving on that point;
and, in this confident expectation, I shall remove my own old diamond
ring from my left hand, and in future wear the Birmingham ring on my
right, where its grasp will keep me in mind of the good friends I have
here, and in vivid remembrance of this happy hour.
Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the Society to whom
these rooms belong, that the presentation has taken place in an
atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an apartment decorated with so many
beautiful works of art, among which I recognize before me the productions
of friends of mine, whose labours and triumphs will never be subjects of
indifference to me. I thank those gentlemen for giving me the
opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some connexion
with their own proceedings; and, though last not least, I tender my
acknowledgments to that charming presence, without which nothing
beautiful can be complete, and which is endearingly associated with rings
of a plainer description, and which, I must confess, awakens in my mind
at the present moment a feeling of regret that I am not in a condition to
make an offer of these testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to commend me
very earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and to assure them
of my affectionate and heartfelt respect.
* * * * *
The company then adjourned to Dee’s Hotel, where a banquet took place, at
which about 220 persons were present, among whom were some of the most
distinguished of the Royal Academicians. To the toast of “The Literature
of England,” Mr. Dickens responded as follows:—
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers in that
great field of literature to which you have pledged the toast, to thank
you for the tribute you have paid to it. Such an honour, rendered by
acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if I may follow on the
same side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) who lately addressed
you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never forget—such
an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to me a two-sided illustration
of the position that literature holds in these latter and, of course,
“degenerate” days. To the great compact phalanx of the people, by whose
industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in
money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many others like it, have
arisen—to that great centre of support, that comprehensive experience,
and that beating heart, literature has turned happily from individual
patrons—sometimes munificent, often sordid, always few—and has there
found at once its highest purpose, its natural range of action, and its
best reward. Therefore it is right also, as it seems to me, not only
that literature should receive honour here, but that it should render
honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to
Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. From the shame
of the purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub
Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke’s table
to-day, and from the sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow—from that
venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even
to a greater extent than authors, because the statesman entertained a low
belief in the universality of corruption, while the author yielded only
to the dire necessity of his calling—from all such evils the people have
set literature free. And my creed in the exercise of that profession is,
that literature cannot be too faithful to the people in return—cannot too
ardently advocate the cause of their advancement, happiness, and
prosperity. I have heard it sometimes said—and what is worse, as
expressing something more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it
written—that literature has suffered by this change, that it has
degenerated by being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the case:
nor do I believe that you have made the discovery either. But let a good
book in these “bad” times be made accessible,—even upon an abstruse and
difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate interest to
mankind,—and my life on it, it shall be extensively bought, read, and
well considered.
Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at this
moment many working men infinitely better versed in Shakespeare and in
Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold
dedications and dear books. I ask anyone to consider for himself who, at
this time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to the dissemination
of such useful publications as “Macaulay’s History,” “Layard’s
Researches,” “Tennyson’s Poems,” “The Duke of Wellington’s published
Despatches,” or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called minute)
discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is with all
these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon
art—if we had the good fortune to listen to one to-morrow—by my
distinguished friend the President of the Royal Academy. However small
the audience, however contracted the circle in the water, in the first
instance, the people are nearer the wider range outside, and the Sister
Arts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage and
improvement from their ready sympathy and cordial response. I may
instance the case of my friend Mr. Ward’s magnificent picture; {105} and
the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not now the
province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it
cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple,—on the
mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery—but that it must
be imbued with human passions and action, informed with human right and
wrong, and, being so informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its
trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged by God and its country.
Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to trouble
you again. For this time I have only once again to repeat what I have
already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end with it. I would
simply say that I believe no true man, with anything to tell, need have
the least misgiving, either for himself or his message, before a large
number of hearers—always supposing that he be not afflicted with the
coxcombical idea of writing down to the popular intelligence, instead of
writing the popular intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, he be
above it;—and, provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is
in him, which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed
that he has some dim design of making himself understood. On behalf of
that literature to which you have done so much honour, I beg to thank you
most cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most flattering reception
you have given to one whose claim is, that he has the distinction of
making it his profession.
* * * * *
Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, “The Educational
Institutions of Birmingham,” in the following speech:
I am requested to propose—or, according to the hypothesis of my friend,
Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary character of a walking advertisement to
advertise to you—the Educational Institutions of Birmingham; an
advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure in calling your
attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in so many words,
mention the more prominent of these institutions, not because your local
memories require any prompting, but because the enumeration implies what
has been done here, what you are doing, and what you will yet do. I
believe the first is the King Edward’s Grammar School, with its various
branches, and prominent among them is that most admirable means of
training the wives of working men to be good wives and working wives, the
prime ornament of their homes, and the cause of happiness to others—I
mean those excellent girls’ schools in various parts of the town, which,
under the excellent superintendence of the principal, I should most
sincerely desire to see in every town in England. Next, I believe, is
the Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging to the body of
Independents, foremost among whose professors literature is proud to hail
Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest contributors to the
Edinburgh Review. The next is the Queen’s College, which, I may say, is
only a newly-born child; but, in the hands of such an admirable Doctor,
we may hope to see it arrive at a vigorous maturity. The next is the
School of Design, which, as has been well observed by my friend Sir
Charles Eastlake, is invaluable in such a place as this; and, lastly,
there is the Polytechnic Institution, with regard to which I had long ago
occasion to express my profound conviction that it was of unspeakable
importance to such a community as this, when I had the honour to be
present, under the auspices of your excellent representative, Mr.
Scholefield. This is the last of what has been done in an educational
way. They are all admirable in their kind; but I am glad to find that
more is yet doing. A few days ago I received a Birmingham newspaper,
containing a most interesting account of a preliminary meeting for the
formation of a Reformatory School for juvenile delinquents. You are not
exempt here from the honour of saving these poor, neglected, and wretched
outcasts. I read of one infant, six years old, who has been twice as
many times in the hands of the police as years have passed over his
devoted head. These are the eggs from which gaol-birds are hatched; if
you wish to check that dreadful brood, you must take the young and
innocent, and have them reared by Christian hands.
Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme for a new
Literary and Scientific Institution, which would be worthy even of this
place, if there was nothing of the kind in it—an institution, as I
understand it, where the words “exclusion” and “exclusiveness” shall be
quite unknown—where all classes may assemble in common trust, respect,
and confidence—where there shall be a great gallery of painting and
statuary open to the inspection and admiration of all comers—where there
shall be a museum of models in which industry may observe its various
sources of manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations,
and arrive at new results—where the very mines under the earth and under
the sea shall not be forgotten, but presented in little to the inquiring
eye—an institution, in short, where many and many of the obstacles which
now inevitably stand in the rugged way of the poor inventor shall be
smoothed away, and where, if he have anything in him, he will find
encouragement and hope.
I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body of
gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside their individual
prepossessions on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to be
engaged in a design as patriotic as well can be. They have the intention
of meeting in a few days to advance this great object, and I call upon
you, in drinking this toast, to drink success to their endeavour, and to
make it the pledge by all good means to promote it.
If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutions in
Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I intend to stop, merely
observing that I have seen within a short walk of this place one of the
most interesting and practical Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb that
has ever come under my observation. I have seen in the factories and
workshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and regularity, and such
great consideration for the workpeople provided, that they might justly
be entitled to be considered educational too. I have seen in your
splendid Town Hall, when the cheap concerts are going on there, also an
admirable educational institution. I have seen their results in the
demeanour of your working people, excellently balanced by a nice
instinct, as free from servility on the one hand, as from self-conceit on
the other. It is a perfect delight to have need to ask a question, if
only from the manner of the reply—a manner I never knew to pass unnoticed
by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a great marry
more I have not touched upon, and weaving all into one good fabric,
remember how much is included under the general head of the Educational
Institutions of your town.
XI.
LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853.
[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir Charles
Eastlake, proposed as a toast, “The Interests of Literature,” and
selected for the representatives of the world of letters, the Dean of St.
Paul’s and Mr. Charles Dickens. Dean Milman having returned thanks.]
MR DICKENS then addressed the President, who, it should be mentioned,
occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered with crimson
velvet, placed just before Stanfield’s picture of _The Victory_.
Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and the
honour done him in associating his name with it, said that those
acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was unable to
recognize in this toast the President’s usual disinterestedness; since
English literature could scarcely be remembered in any place, and,
certainly, not in a school of art, without a very distinct remembrance of
his own tasteful writings, to say nothing of that other and better part
of himself, which, unfortunately, was not visible upon these occasions.
If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount Hardinge), he
(Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief thanks with one word
of reference to the noble picture painted by a very dear friend of his,
which was a little eclipsed that evening by the radiant and rubicund
chair which the President now so happily toned down, he would beg leave
to say that, as literature could nowhere be more appropriately honoured
than in that place, so he thought she could nowhere feel a higher
gratification in the ties that bound her to the sister arts. He ever
felt in that place that literature found, through their instrumentality,
always a new expression, and in a universal language.
XII.
LONDON, MAY 1, 1853.
[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the above
date, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed as a toast “Anglo-Saxon Literature,”
and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction as a means of
awakening attention to the condition of the oppressed and suffering
classes:—]
“MR. DICKENS replied to this toast in a graceful and playful strain. In
the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast on the chancery
department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the Lord
Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not
distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without reference
to it. The amount of what he said was, that the Court had received a
great many more hard opinions than it merited; that they had been
parsimoniously obliged to perform a great amount of business by a very
inadequate number of judges; but that more recently the number of judges
had been increased to seven, and there was reason to hope that all
business brought before it would now be performed without unnecessary
delay.
“Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence; said he was
exceedingly happy to hear it, as he trusted now that a suit, in which he
was greatly interested, would speedily come to an end. I heard a little
by-conversation between Mr. Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, who sat
opposite me, in which the latter seemed to be reiterating the same
assertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not extraordinarily
complicated might be got through with in three months. Mr. Dickens said
he was very happy to hear it; but I fancied there was a little shade of
incredulity in his manner; however, the incident showed one thing, that
is, that the chancery were not insensible to the representations of
Dickens; but the whole tone of the thing was quite good-natured and
agreeable.” {113}
XIII.
BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853.
[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens on
behalf of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, took place on Tuesday
evening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, where,
notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand
persons had assembled. The work selected was the _Christmas Carol_. The
high mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate
with remarkable force the various characters of the story, and with
admirable skill to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to
trusting and thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of
Scrooge’s nephew, to the hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe
the Ragshop-keeper’s parlour. The reading occupied more than three
hours, but so interested were the audience, that only one or two left the
Hall previously to its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts of
applause attested the successful discharge of the reader’s arduous task.
On Thursday evening Mr. Dickens read _The Cricket on the Hearth_. The
Hall was again well ruled, and the tale, though deficient in the dramatic
interest of the _Carol_, was listened to with attention, and rewarded
with repeated applause. On Friday evening, the _Christmas Carol_ was
read a second time to a large assemblage of work-people, for whom, at Mr.
Dickens’s special request, the major part of the vast edifice was
reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. Dickens delivered the
following brief address, almost every sentence of which was received with
loudly expressed applause.]
MY GOOD FRIENDS,—When I first imparted to the committee of the projected
Institute my particular wish that on one of the evenings of my readings
here the main body of my audience should be composed of working men and
their families, I was animated by two desires; first, by the wish to have
the great pleasure of meeting you face to face at this Christmas time,
and accompany you myself through one of my little Christmas books; and
second, by the wish to have an opportunity of stating publicly in your
presence, and in the presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the
Institute will, from the beginning, recognise one great principle—strong
in reason and justice—which I believe to be essential to the very life of
such an Institution. It is, that the working man shall, from the first
unto the last, have a share in the management of an Institution which is
designed for his benefit, and which calls itself by his name.
I have no fear here of being misunderstood—of being supposed to mean too
much in this. If there ever was a time when any one class could of
itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of society—which I
greatly doubt—that time is unquestionably past. It is in the fusion of
different classes, without confusion; in the bringing together of
employers and employed; in the creating of a better common understanding
among those whose interests are identical, who depend upon each other,
who are vitally essential to each other, and who never can be in
unnatural antagonism without deplorable results, that one of the chief
principles of a Mechanics’ Institution should consist. In this world a
great deal of the bitterness among us arises from an imperfect
understanding of one another. Erect in Birmingham a great Educational
Institution, properly educational; educational of the feelings as well as
of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham men contribute; in which
all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein all orders of Birmingham men
are faithfully represented—and you will erect a Temple of Concord here
which will be a model edifice to the whole of England.
Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans’ Committee, which not
long ago considered the establishment of the Institute so sensibly, and
supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat the gentlemen—earnest I
know in the good work, and who are now among us,—by all means to avoid
the great shortcoming of similar institutions; and in asking the working
man for his confidence, to set him the great example and give him theirs
in return. You will judge for yourselves if I promise too much for the
working man, when I say that he will stand by such an enterprise with the
utmost of his patience, his perseverance, sense, and support; that I am
sure he will need no charitable aid or condescending patronage; but will
readily and cheerfully pay for the advantages which it confers; that he
will prepare himself in individual cases where he feels that the adverse
circumstances around him have rendered it necessary; in a word, that he
will feel his responsibility like an honest man, and will most honestly
and manfully discharge it. I now proceed to the pleasant task to which I
assure you I have looked forward for a long time.
* * * * *
At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, and
“three cheers, with three times three.” As soon as the enthusiasm of the
audience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens said:—
You have heard so much of my voice since we met to-night, that I will
only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your regard, that I
am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any little service I have
rendered to you I have freely rendered from my heart; that I hope to
become an honorary member of your great Institution, and will meet you
often there when it becomes practically useful; that I thank you most
affectionately for this new mark of your sympathy and approval; and that
I wish you many happy returns of this great birthday-time, and many
prosperous years.
XIV.
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854.
[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary Dinner
in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial Travellers’ Schools,
held at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickens presided on
this occasion, and proposed the toasts.]
I THINK it may be assumed that most of us here present know something
about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or foreign countries,
although I dare say some of us have had experience in that way, but at
home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of us
have had experience of the extinct “fast coaches,” the “Wonders,”
“Taglionis,” and “Tallyhos,” of other days. I daresay most of us
remember certain modest postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads,
through slush and mud, to little country towns with no visible
population, except half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women
with umbrellas and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under
the gables, to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I
dare say, if so minded, about our recollections of the “Talbot,” the
“Queen’s Head,” or the “Lion” of those days. We have all been to that
room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not quite free
from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the
sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the box-coats that hung
from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid us at every turn, like so
many human man-traps; where county members, framed and glazed, were
eternally presenting that petition which, somehow or other, had made
their glory in the county, although nothing else had ever come of it.
Where the books in the windows always wanted the first, last, and middle
leaves, and where the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in
the night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarly singular period of
the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts
of our favourite hotel, wherever it was—its beds, its stables, its vast
amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital
dishes, its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal
our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal
regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic once
writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her
the character of being an “eminently gatherable-to-one’s-arms sort of
person.” Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat similar
tribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided at our
hotels.
With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no doubt,
equally familiar. We know all about that station to which we must take
our ticket, although we never get there; and the other one at which we
arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile from the town, where
the old road is sure to have been abolished, and the new road is going to
be made—where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and the new
one is not half built up. We know all about that party on the platform
who, with the best intentions, can do nothing for our luggage except
pitch it into all sorts of unattainable places. We know all about that
short omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger
of the crown of one’s hat; and about that fly, whose leading peculiarity
is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, how
instantaneously the lights of the station disappear when the train
starts, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which will be an
excellent house when the customers come, but which at present has nothing
to offer but a liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime.
I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object of
increasing your interest in the purpose of this night’s assemblage.
Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the
more from his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson
unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. He may have his
experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; but home is the
best, after all, and its pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly
prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, every one must be prepared to
learn that commercial travellers, as a body, know how to prize those
domestic relations from which their pursuits so frequently sever them;
for no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing
testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in founding and
maintaining a school for the children of deceased or unfortunate members
of their own body; those children who now appeal to you in mute but
eloquent terms from the gallery.
It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly
objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its solid
and practical results, that we are here to-night. It is to roof that
building which is to shelter the children of your deceased friends with
one crowning ornament, the best that any building can have, namely, a
receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your
active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your own good work.
You know how to put your hands to the plough in earnest as well as any
men in existence, for this little book informs me that you raised last
year no less a sum than £8000, and while fully half of that sum consisted
of new donations to the building fund, I find that the regular revenue of
the charity has only suffered to the extent of £30. After this, I most
earnestly and sincerely say that were we all authors together, I might
boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same unity and
steadfastness I find in yours.
I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the
vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of
brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are united in a
common pursuit. You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that
I will not presume to lay them before you in any further detail. Suffice
it to say that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by
halves. I do not think you could do so if you tried, and I have a moral
certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are
not members of the travellers’ body, I will say in the words of the
French proverb, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” The Commercial
Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the
visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring
that aid in their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from
them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, “Success to
the Commercial Travellers’ School.”
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