I CANNOT, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception
accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to compress what
I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. It is more
than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who
“thought they should be heard for their much speaking.” As they have
propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe that they
flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my
best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble
lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about
a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated
in this place what the whole country knows perfectly well to be true, and
what no man in it can by possibility better know to be true than those
disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of
hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became
premier—I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, at a time when
this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress—I say, that noble
lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this age, who has, by his
earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and
it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come between
the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to the
private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. Now, I have some slight
acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, and I will accept that
figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to form a
company of Her Majesty’s servants, I think I should know where to put my
hand on “the comic old gentleman;” nor, that if I wanted to get up a
pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to go to for the
tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable host of
supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that contention with which
many of us are familiar, both on these and on other boards, in which the
principal objects thrown about are loaves and fishes. But I will try to
give the noble lord the reason for these private theatricals, and the
reason why, however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon
them, there is not the faintest present hope of their coming to a
conclusion. It is this:—The public theatricals which the noble lord is
so condescending as to manage are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so
cumbrous, the parts so ill-distributed, the company so full of “walking
gentlemen,” the managers have such large families, and are so bent upon
putting those families into what is theatrically called “first
business”—not because of their aptitude for it, but because they _are_
their families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition.
We have seen the _Comedy of Errors_ played so dismally like a tragedy
that we really cannot bear it. We are, therefore, making bold to get up
the _School of Reform_, and we hope, before the play is out, to improve
that noble lord by our performance very considerably. If he object that
we have no right to improve him without his license, we venture to claim
that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful
piper, whom we always pay.
Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as
my trade and calling is not associated with politics, perhaps it may be
useful for me to show how I came to be here, because reasons similar to
those which have influenced me may still be trembling in the balance in
the minds of others. I want at all times, in full sincerity, to do my
duty by my countrymen. If _I_ feel an attachment towards them, there is
nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too
affectionately remember the confidence and friendship that they have long
reposed in me. My sphere of action—which I shall never change—I shall
never overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do
to-night. By literature I have lived, and through literature I have been
content to serve my country; and I am perfectly well aware that I cannot
serve two masters. In my sphere of action I have tried to understand the
heavier social grievances, and to help to set them right. When the
_Times_ newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to
the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplaced men and
misdirected things, which had made England unable to find on the face of
the earth, an enemy one-twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and
ruin of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the
gloomy silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect
in which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With shame
and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new
element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and
crime, which is always below us—with little adequate expression of the
general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, in
Parliament—with the machinery of Government and the legislature going
round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if
they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, when it
had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them—I did and
do believe that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could
possibly take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking of the
people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty to effect
a great peaceful constitutional change in the administration of their own
affairs. At such a crisis this association arose; at such a crisis I
joined it: considering its further case to be—if further case could
possibly be needed—that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s
business, that men must be gregarious in good citizenship as well as in
other things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a centre
of attraction for particles to fly to, before any serviceable body with
recognised functions can come into existence. This association has
arisen, and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have
heard in the main but three, which I will now briefly notice. It is said
that it is proposed by this association to exercise an influence, through
the constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not the least
hesitation in saying that I have the smallest amount of faith in the
House of Commons at present existing and that I consider the exercise of
such influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this
country. I was reading no later than yesterday the book of Mr. Pepys,
which is rather a favourite of mine, in which he, two hundred years ago,
writing of the House of Commons, says:
“My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest
grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust of
being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can
see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design.”
Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many years
after a Reform Bill, the house of Commons is so little changed, I will
not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that bills which
cramp and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so
easily passed, and how it happens that measures for their real interests
are so very difficult to be got through Parliament. I will not analyse
the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases its
deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable Member who was once
a candidate for the honour of your—and my—independent vote and interest.
I will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments,
standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask
how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes
and definitions of Shakespeare’s Touchstone—the retort courteous—the quip
modest—the reply churlish—the reproof valiant—the countercheck
quarrelsome—the lie circumstantial and the lie direct—are of immeasurably
greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation,
and the education, of a whole people. I will not penetrate into the
mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard of Party keeps
his strangled public questions, and with regard to which, when he gives
the key to his wife, the new comer, he strictly charges her on no account
to open the door. I will merely put it to the experience of everybody
here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of
hearing, a little dim of sight, a little slow of understanding, and
whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiency invalided state to require
close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and
whether it is not capable of considerable improvement? I believe that,
in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence,
the people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have
its memory jogged; and be kept awake when it happens to have taken too
much Ministerial narcotic; it must be trotted about, and must be bustled
and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. I hold
that no power can deprive us of the right to administer our functions as
a body comprising electors from all parts of the country, associated
together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle,
unmeaning routine, or worn-out conventionalities.
This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this
Association sets class against class. Is this so? (_Cries of_ “No.”)
No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I
wish to avoid placing in opposition those two words—Aristocracy and
People. I am one who can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and
would not on any account deprive either of a single just right belonging
to it. I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the governors and
the governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between
them, in which are lying, newly-buried, thousands on thousands of the
bravest and most devoted men that even England ever bred. It is to
prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked,
that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary
consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so
strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge
over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported
by common sense. Setting class against class! That is the very parrot
prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following
example:—A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great
number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked them to
give his children bread, gave them stones; who, when they were told to
give those children fish, gave them serpents. When they were ordered to
send to the East, they sent to the West; when they ought to have been
serving dinner in the North, they were consulting exploded cookery books
in the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when
required to do anything, and were bringing everything to ruin. At last
the respectable gentleman calls his house steward, and says, even then
more in sorrow than in anger, “This is a terrible business; no fortune
can stand it—no mortal equanimity can bear it! I must change my system;
I must obtain servants who will do their duty.” The house steward throws
up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates “Good God, master, you are
setting class against class!” and then rushes off into the servants’
hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wicked feeling.
I now come to the third objection, which is common among young gentlemen
who are not particularly fit for anything but spending money which they
have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, “How very
extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can’t mind
their own business.” I think it will occur to all that a very sufficient
mode of disposing of this objection is to say, that it is our own
business we mind when we come forward in this way, and it is to prevent
it from being mismanaged by them. I observe from the Parliamentary
debates—which have of late, by-the-bye, frequently suggested to me that
there is this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh,
that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the scarlet, in
the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull—I have observed from
the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been a
great deal of the reproof valiant and the counter-check quarrelsome, in
reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform,
by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should
have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know
to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I
consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not
already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for
Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be.
There is, however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has
so pointed a moral at the end of it that I will substitute it for a new
case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St.
Stephen’s. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks
was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept,
much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the
course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was
born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor’s Assistant, and well versed in
figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants,
book-keepers, and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine
inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the
constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on
certain splints of elm wood called “tallies.” In the reign of George
III. an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink,
and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate
adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a
change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this
bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks
abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable
accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done
with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say
there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing,
on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it
would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be
easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the
miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had
been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and
so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially
burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of
Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to
the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of
Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to
ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the
second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over
the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn’t got home
to-night.
Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all obstinate
adherence to rubbish which the time has long outlived, is certain to have
in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; and
that will some day set fire to something or other; which, if given boldly
to the winds would have been harmless; but which, obstinately retained,
is ruinous. I believe myself that when Administrative Reform goes up it
will be idle to hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance.
The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind
our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private
wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public
folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon,
and stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the country for
merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic or
democratic, only asking whether it be honest or true, is, I take it, the
true object of this Association. This object it seeks to promote by
uniting together large numbers of the people, I hope, of all conditions,
to the end that they may better comprehend, bear in mind, understand
themselves, and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of
which there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the
skirmishers thrown out from time to time by the Party of Generals, they
may see that their feints and manœuvres do not oppress the small
defaulters and release the great, and that they do not gull the public
with a mere field-day Review of Reform, instead of an earnest,
hard-fought Battle. I have had no consultation with any one upon the
subject, but I particularly wish that the directors may devise some means
of enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms
than subscribers who have larger resources. I could wish to see great
numbers of them belong to us, because I sincerely believe that it would
be good for the common weal.
Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard asked
him for a day for his motion, “Let the hon. gentleman find a day for
himself.”
“Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed
That he is grown so great?”
If our Cæsar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing that
cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, “First Lord, your duty it is
to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. See you, who take
the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue
for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you can get
it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old
country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its
swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the
day when the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head
of the Government failed in his duty in not anticipating it by a brighter
and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord; make a day; work for a
day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in return may
then—not otherwise—find a day for you; a day equally associated with the
contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted English people, and
with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her fair line of children.”
XVI.
SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855.
[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol in the
Mechanics’ Hall in behalf of the funds of the Institute.
After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few gentlemen
in Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens for his acceptance a very handsome
service of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a pair of fish carvers,
as some substantial manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens for
his kindness in coming to Sheffield. Henceforth the Christmas of 1855
would be associated in his mind with the name of that gentleman.]
MR. CHARLES DICKENS, in receiving the presentation, said, he accepted
with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of
Sheffield-workmanship; and he begged to assure them that the kind
observations which had been made by the Mayor, and the way in which they
had been responded to by that assembly, would never be obliterated from
his remembrance. The present testified not only to the work of Sheffield
hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. It was his
earnest desire to do right by his readers, and to leave imaginative and
popular literature associated with the private homes and public rights of
the people of England. The case of cutlery with which he had been so
kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he
assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the
principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his
reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, and many
happy new years.
XVII.
LONDON, FEBRUARY 9, 1858.
[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on
Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one hundred and fifty gentlemen
sat down to dinner, in the Freemasons’ Hall. Later in the evening all
the seats in the gallery were filled with ladies interested in the
success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other toasts, the
Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed “Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick
Children,” and said:—]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It is one of my rules in life not to believe a man
who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in children. I hold
myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because I know,
as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen its affections
and sympathies against those dear little people must be wanting in so
many humanising experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to be quite
an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the assertion down,
whenever I happen to meet with it—which is sometimes, though not often—as
an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel languor of the hour,
and meaning about as much as that knowing social lassitude, which has
used up the cardinal virtues and quite found out things in general,
usually does mean. I suppose it may be taken for granted that we, who
come together in the name of children and for the sake of children,
acknowledge that we have an interest in them; indeed, I have observed
since I sit down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether,
representing an infant institution, and not even yet a grown-up company.
A few years are necessary to the increase of our strength and the
expansion of our figure; and then these tables, which now have a few
tucks in them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now sits so
easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us. Nevertheless, it is
likely that even we are not without our experience now and then of spoilt
children. I do not mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody’s own
children ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our
particular friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down
after dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert
to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the
distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is to assist at
those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated with
imitations and descriptive dialogue which might not be inaptly called,
after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome ascent of
Miss Mary and the eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what
it is when those children won’t go to bed; we know how they prop their
eyelids open with their forefingers when they will sit up; how, when they
become fractious, they say aloud that they don’t like us, and our nose is
too long, and why don’t we go? And we are perfectly acquainted with
those kicking bundles which are carried off at last protesting. An
eminent eye-witness told me that he was one of a company of learned
pundits who assembled at the house of a very distinguished philosopher of
the last generation to hear him expound his stringent views concerning
infant education and early mental development, and he told me that while
the philosopher did this in very beautiful and lucid language, the
philosopher’s little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by
dabbling up to the elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for
their entertainment, having previously anointed his hair with the syrup,
combed it with his fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable
that we also have our similar experiences sometimes, of principles that
are not quite practice, and that we know people claiming to be very wise
and profound about nations of men who show themselves to be rather weak
and shallow about units of babies.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to present to
you after this dinner of to-day are not of this class. I have glanced at
these for the easier and lighter introduction of another, a very
different, a far more numerous, and a far more serious class. The spoilt
children whom I must show you are the spoilt children of the poor in this
great city, the children who are, every year, for ever and ever
irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of ours by tens of
thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you, assisting and
not contravening the ways of Providence, will help to save them. The two
grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children before you,
preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their
little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Of the annual
deaths in this great town, their unnatural deaths form more than
one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to the other
class—I shall not ask you on behalf of these children to observe how good
they are, how pretty they are, how clever they are, how promising they
are, whose beauty they most resemble—I shall only ask you to observe how
weak they are, and how like death they are! And I shall ask you, by the
remembrance of everything that lies between your own infancy and that so
miscalled second childhood when the child’s graces are gone and nothing
but its helplessness remains; I shall ask you to turn your thoughts to
_these_ spoilt children in the sacred names of Pity and Compassion.
Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane
members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some of
the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In the closes
and wynds of that picturesque place—I am sorry to remind you what fast
friends picturesqueness and typhus often are—we saw more poverty and
sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a life. Our way
lay from one to another of the most wretched dwellings, reeking with
horrible odours; shut out from the sky, shut out from the air, mere pits
and dens. In a room in one of these places, where there was an empty
porridge-pot on the cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged
children crouching on the bare ground near it—where, I remember as I
speak, that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained and
time-stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the fever which had
shaken everything else there had shaken even it—there lay, in an old
egg-box which the mother had begged from a shop, a little feeble, wasted,
wan, sick child. With his little wasted face, and his little hot, worn
hands folded over his breast, and his little bright, attentive eyes, I
can see him now, as I have seen him for several years, look in steadily
at us. There he lay in his little frail box, which was not at all a bad
emblem of the little body from which he was slowly parting—there he lay,
quite quiet, quite patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the
mother said; he seldom complained; “he lay there, seemin’ to woonder what
it was a’ aboot.” God knows, I thought, as I stood looking at him, he
had his reasons for wondering—reasons for wondering how it could possibly
come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when
he ought to have been as bright and as brisk as the birds that never got
near him—reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a little
decrepid old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, as if there
were no crowds of healthy and happy children playing on the grass under
the summer’s sun within a stone’s throw of him, as if there were no
bright, moving sea on the other side of the great hill overhanging the
city; as if there were no great clouds rushing over it; as if there were
no life, and movement, and vigour anywhere in the world—nothing but
stoppage and decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence,
more pathetically than I have ever heard anything said by any orator in
my life, “Will you please to tell me what this means, strange man? and if
you can give me any good reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced
on my way to Him who said that children were to come into His presence
and were not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that they
should come by this hard road by which I am travelling; pray give that
reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly and wonder about it very
much;” and to my mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many a
poor child, sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this
London; many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately and kindly
tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward
circumstances, wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such
times I have seen my poor little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he
has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always found him
wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious God, such
things should be!
Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not be, if
this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great
compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and
prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this
place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where once, no doubt,
blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and
married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the
old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old
oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old
state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now
converted are such little patients that the attendant nurses look like
reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable
Christian ogre. Grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the
rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having
been ill. On the doll’s beds are such diminutive creatures that each
poor sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round, you
may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled over half the
brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has
mowed down (as I saw myself) the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the
walls of these rooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures.
At the bed’s heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal
embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figure of Him who was once a
child himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on the
beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out-patients
brought to that house for relief is no fewer than ten thousand in the
compass of one single year. In the room in which these are received, you
may see against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it has been
calculated, that if every grateful mother who brings a child there will
drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a
year by so large a sum as forty pounds. And you may read in the Hospital
Report, with a glow of pleasure, that these poor women are so respondent
as to have made, even in a toiling year of difficulty and high prices,
this estimated forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same
Hospital, you may read with what a generous earnestness the highest and
wisest members of the medical profession testify to the great need of it;
to the immense difficulty of treating children in the same hospitals with
grown-up people, by reason of their different ailments and requirements,
to the vast amount of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will
be saved, through this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but
among the prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of
children’s illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic
mode of studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst
of all—(for I must present no rose-coloured picture of this place to
you—I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s
Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce
obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow
and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably
diminutive, compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be
maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to
saying better known, because I will not believe that in a Christian
community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail,
being better known, to be well and richly endowed.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment—which I
resolved when I got up not to allow myself—this is the simple case. This
is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf of
the thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but also
on behalf of the thousands of children who live half developed, racked
with preventible pain, shorn of their natural capacity for health and
enjoyment. If these innocent creatures cannot move you for themselves,
how can I possibly hope to move you in their name? The most delightful
paper, the most charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles
Lamb conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter
night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in their
society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, bachelor self, and
finds that they were but dream-children who might have been, but never
were. “We are nothing,” they say to him; “less than nothing, and dreams.
We are only what might have been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore
of Lethe, millions of ages, before we have existence and a name.” “And
immediately awaking,” he says, “I found myself in my arm chair.” The
dream-children whom I would now raise, if I could, before every one of
you, according to your various circumstances, should be the dear child
you love, the dearer child you have lost, the child you might have had,
the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream-children should
hold in its powerful hand one of the little children now lying in the
Child’s Hospital, or now shut out of it to perish. Each of these
dream-children should say to you, “O, help this little suppliant in my
name; O, help it for my sake!” Well!—And immediately awaking, you should
find yourselves in the Freemasons’ Hall, happily arrived at the end of a
rather long speech, drinking “Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick
Children,” and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.
XVIII.
EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858.
[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol in
the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the Philosophical
Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickens
acknowledged the tribute as follows:]
MY LORD PROVOST, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am deeply
sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and great surprise;
and that I thank you cordially with all my heart. I never have
forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour to be a burgess
and guild-brother of the Corporation of Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or
seventeen years ago, the first great public recognition and encouragement
I ever received was bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent
city—in this city so distinguished in literature and so distinguished in
the arts. You will readily believe that I have carried into the various
countries I have since traversed, and through all my subsequent career,
the proud and affectionate remembrance of that eventful epoch in my life;
and that coming back to Edinburgh is to me like coming home.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice to-night, that I
will not inflict on you the additional task of hearing any more. I am
better reconciled to limiting myself to these very few words, because I
know and feel full well that no amount of speech to which I could give
utterance could possibly express my sense of the honour and distinction
you have conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification I derive from
this reception.
XIX.
LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858.
[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund,
held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, at which Thackeray presided, Mr. Dickens
made the following speech:]
IN our theatrical experience as playgoers we are all equally accustomed
to predict by certain little signs and portents on the stage what is
going to happen there. When the young lady, an admiral’s daughter, is
left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smart
spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath her feet,
we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen enter, for
whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are in waiting, we
augur a conversation, and that it will assume a retrospective
biographical character. When any of the performers who belong to the
sea-faring or marauding professions are observed to arm themselves with
very small swords to which are attached very large hilts, we predict that
the affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the association of ideas,
it may have occurred to some that when I asked my old friend in the chair
to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and I have him now on
my lips.
The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office which I hold,
are not so frequent or so great as its privileges. He is in fact a mere
walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that he has no one to
love. If this advantage could be added to his character it would be one
of a more agreeable nature than it is, and his forlorn position would be
greatly improved. His duty is to call every half year at the bankers’,
when he signs his name in a large greasy inconvenient book, to certain
documents of which he knows nothing, and then he delivers it to the
property man and exits anywhere.
He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges to watch
the steady growth of an institution in which he takes great interest; it
is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the prudence, the
goodness, the self-denial, and the excellence of a class of persons who
have been too long depreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied,
out of the depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And lastly, it
is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose the health
of the chairman at the annual dinners of the institution, when that
chairman is one for whose genius he entertains the warmest admiration,
and whom he respects as a friend, and as one who does honour to
literature, and in whom literature is honoured. I say when that is the
case, he feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. From
the earliest days of this institution I have ventured to impress on its
managers, that they would consult its credit and success by choosing its
chairmen as often as possible within the circle of literature and the
arts; and I will venture to say that no similar institution has been
presided over by so many remarkable and distinguished men. I am sure,
however, that it never has had, and that it never will have, simply
because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by the
presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night.
It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on myself to
flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr. Thackeray’s books, and
to tell you to observe how full they are of wit and wisdom, how
out-speaking, and how devoid of fear or favour; but I will take leave to
remark, in paying my due homage and respect to them, that it is fitting
that such a writer and such an institution should be brought together.
Every writer of fiction, although he may not adopt the dramatic form,
writes in effect for the stage. He may never write plays; but the truth
and passion which are in him must be more or less reflected in the great
mirror which he holds up to nature. Actors, managers, and authors are
all represented in this company, and it maybe supposed that they all have
studied the deep wants of the human heart in many theatres; but none of
them could have studied its mysterious workings in any theatre to greater
advantage than in the bright and airy pages of _Vanity Fair_. To this
skilful showman, who has so often delighted us, and who has charmed us
again to-night, we have now to wish God speed, and that he may continue
for many years {150} to exercise his potent art. To him fill a bumper
toast, and fervently utter, God bless him!
XX.
LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858.
[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week of
1853, and on several subsequent occasions, Mr. Dickens had read the
_Christmas Carol_ and the _Chimes_ before public audiences, but always in
aid of the funds of some institution, or for other benevolent purposes.
The first reading he ever gave for his own benefit took place on the
above date, in St. Martin’s Hall, (now converted into the Queen’s
Theatre). This reading Mr. Dickens prefaced with the following speech:—]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It may perhaps be in known to you that, for a few
years past, I have been accustomed occasionally to read some of my
shorter books, to various audiences, in aid of a variety of good objects,
and at some charge to myself, both in time and money. It having at
length become impossible in any reason to comply with these always
accumulating demands, I have had definitively to choose between now and
then reading on my own account, as one of my recognised occupations, or
not reading at all. I have had little or no difficulty in deciding on
the former course. The reasons that have led me to it—besides the
consideration that it necessitates no departure whatever from the chosen
pursuits of my life—are threefold: firstly, I have satisfied myself that
it can involve no possible compromise of the credit and independence of
literature; secondly, I have long held the opinion, and have long acted
on the opinion, that in these times whatever brings a public man and his
public face to face, on terms of mutual confidence and respect, is a good
thing; thirdly, I have had a pretty large experience of the interest my
hearers are so generous as to take in these occasions, and of the delight
they give to me, as a tried means of strengthening those relations—I may
almost say of personal friendship—which it is my great privilege and
pride, as it is my great responsibility, to hold with a multitude of
persons who will never hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is that I
come, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time; and thus it is
that I proceed to read this little book, quite as composedly as I might
proceed to write it, or to publish it in any other way.
XXI.
LONDON, MAY 1, 1858.
[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal Academy,
after the health of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray had been proposed by
the President, Sir Charles Eastlake:—]
FOLLOWING the order of your toast, I have to take the first part in the
duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to
literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much an interchange
of compliments, as it were, between near relations, to enter into any
lengthened expression of our thanks for the honour you have done us. I
feel that it would be changing this splendid assembly into a sort of
family party. I may, however, take leave to say that your sister, whom I
represent, is strong and healthy; that she has a very great affection
for, and an undying interest in you, and that it is always a very great
gratification to her to see herself so well remembered within these
walls, and to know that she is an honoured guest at your hospitable
board.
XXII.
LONDON, JULY 21, 1858.
[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess’s Theatre,
for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic College.
Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered the
following speech:]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I think I may venture to congratulate you
beforehand on the pleasant circumstance that the movers and seconders of
the resolutions which will be submitted to you will, probably, have very
little to say. Through the Report which you have heard read, and through
the comprehensive address of the chairman, the cause which brings us
together has been so very clearly stated to you, that it can stand in
need of very little, if of any further exposition. But, as I have the
honour to move the first resolution which this handsome gift, and the
vigorous action that must be taken upon it, necessitate, I think I shall
only give expression to what is uppermost in the general mind here, if I
venture to remark that, many as the parts are in which Mr. Kean has
distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared in one in
which the large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, and the grace
of a gentleman, have been more admirably blended than in this day’s
faithful adherence to the calling of which he is a prosperous ornament,
and in this day’s manly advocacy of its cause.
Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is:
“That the Report of the provisional committee be adopted, and that this
meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully acknowledges, the gift of five
acres of land referred to in the said Report.” {153}
It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this acceptance
and acknowledgment, and that we all know very well that this generous
gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of every lover of the
dramatic art. As it is far too often forgotten by those who are indebted
to it for many a restorative flight out of this working-day world, that
the silks, and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professors must be
every night exchanged for the hideous coats and waistcoats of the present
day, in which we have now the honour and the misfortune of appearing
before you, so when we do meet with a nature so considerably generous as
this donor’s, and do find an interest in the real life and struggles of
the people who have delighted it, so very spontaneous and so very
liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and to admire, we have no
duty left but to “take the goods the gods provide us,” and to make the
best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to remark,
that in this mode of turning a good gift to the highest account, lies the
truest gratitude.
In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was
speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, the spot upon which we
are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty and a
cruel bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice
will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where I now stand
dryshod, and that “the quality of mercy” will be beautifully stated to
the Venetian Council by a learned young doctor from Padua, on these very
boards on which we now enlarge upon the quality of charity and sympathy.
Knowing this, it came into my mind to consider how different the real
bond of to-day from the ideal bond of to-night. Now, all generosity, all
forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousies and unworthy
divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, all
selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all evil,—now
all good. Then, a bond to be broken within the compass of a few—three or
four—swiftly passing hours,—now, a bond to be valid and of good effect
generations hence.
Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this bond, between
this generous gentleman on the one hand, and the united members of a too
often and too long disunited art upon the other, be you the witnesses.
Do you attest of everything that is liberal and free in spirit, that is
“so nominated in the bond;” and of everything that is grudging,
self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by no sophistry ever to be
found there. I beg to move the resolution which I have already had the
pleasure of reading.
XXIII.
MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858.
[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the
Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the
Free-trade Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr. Dickens
presided.]
IT has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season
produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner
do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price
begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and
west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking
up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on
this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest
and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed
the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of
orations, each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little
or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed
to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it
was delivered.
The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope
that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and
deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do,
and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and
straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to
throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique
biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall.
At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the words,
“Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire.” Will you allow
me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before
you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put
myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my
studies. To begin with: the title did not suggest to me anything in the
least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with
the terms, “Mechanics’ Institutions,” and “Literary Societies,” but they
have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body
of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which
generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, which is seldom
paid for, and which takes the name of the mechanics most grievously in
vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place
together.
I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this
title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, “Here’s the old story.” But
the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand
that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this
association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to
prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this
Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one
hundred and fourteen local Mechanics’ Institutions and Mutual Improvement
Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society;
suggesting to all how they can best communicate with and profit by the
fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before
them; advising them how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct
end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and
sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of
excellent books, called “Free Itinerating Libraries.” I learned that
these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds
of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by
thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never
damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These and other like facts lead me
to consider the immense importance of the fact, that no little cluster of
working men’s cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at
the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for
water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for
it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of
speech even before it has come into existence.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has
brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do
for those working men what this local association does. No central
association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local
association does. No central association at a distance could possibly
put them in that familiar and easy communication one with another, as
that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley seven miles off,
should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in that valley
twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you
may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I
impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a
most important feature, of this society.
On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest men,
however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and
maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that
combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in time a vital
consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to
the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to
diffuse the results of experience and of reflection.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history
of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so
far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at
certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising members of
the local society to submit themselves to voluntary examination in
various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the
charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to
come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which
it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the
list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of
recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving
them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose.
I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which have
comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal
coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language—in
fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I
felt most devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that they had not been
submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been,
I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself to-night. And yet
it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these
examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a
continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence, has been a constant
wrestle with
“Those twin gaolers of the daring heart—
Low birth and iron fortune.” {161}
I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these
questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of
whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, the business of
whose life is with tools and with machinery.
Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from
among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers
who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous
examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from
morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked
eight miles a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which
they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington,
who begin life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a-week, and
the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he
worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which
this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear
before you to-night, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There
is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third-class
certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year
again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a
wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing
until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a
great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very
humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles
a-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which he has won
so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he
was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o’clock
in the morning to learn drawing. “The thought of my lads,” he writes in
his modest account of himself, “in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave
me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any
personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to
understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country,
England, pre-eminent in the world’s history.” There is a piecer at
mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little
more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is
arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught,
who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a
subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an
astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and
is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing-classes in that
same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that
working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of to-night. Well
may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of
his trade, by the American poet:
“Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees its clause.
Something attempted, something done,
Has earn’d a night’s repose.”
To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local
societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from
amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable man, whose
history I have read with feelings that I could not adequately express
under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who
worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from
fatigue: who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five
shillings a-week: who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production
of the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved
a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds: who is
now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in some respects an original
collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected
the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: who is worthily the president
of his own local Literary Institution, and who was at his work this time
last night as foreman in a mill.
So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many
more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary
test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the
printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with
equal gravity, describes his occupation as “nursing a little child.” Nor
are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories,
milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is
fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by
the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably
distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an
admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household
economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, and
if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I
should positively get up at four o’clock in the morning with the
determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in
search of a wife.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily
occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the
working of this Association, than any number of speakers could possibly
present to you. Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable
people is the Association’s best and most effective triumph in the
present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the
future. As its temporary mouth-piece, I would beg to say to that portion
of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can
never hold itself apart from them;—can never set itself above them; that
their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and
that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In
particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing
will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence
of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it
gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving
brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they
are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes,
simply because the Institution does not presume to doubt that persons who
have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money
serviceable—because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up
babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows it is given, and
knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness,
and, above all, perfect independence.
Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective
audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold
which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of
knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with
which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect
and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say,
nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of
them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For
the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the
shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot, which was once
always saying, without knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge was
a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the
mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an
English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been—as my friend Mr.
Carlyle vigorously has it—“blasted into space;” and there, as to this
world, is an end of them.
So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first
place, let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual
improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood,
through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom
you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency
of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves
in this matter with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise.
Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart,
which is always very near to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the
midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell of in
figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part
of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a
slate or demonstrated by a microscope—do not let us, in the laudable
pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the
imagination which equally surround us as a part of the great scheme. Let
the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes,
always remember those fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments
that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle
enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The
hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just
balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a
blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as
He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of
the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the
wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that
condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and
passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always
remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the
imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and
help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all
followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed, when it
informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and the heart too,
it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates
the universe.
XXIV.
COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858.
[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle Hotel, on
the occasion of the presentation to Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold watch,
as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his Christmas Carol, given in
December of the previous year, in aid of the funds of the Coventry
Institute. The chair was taken by C. W. Hoskyns, Esq. Mr. Dickens
ackowledged the testimonial in the following words:]
MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Vice-chairman, and Gentlemen,—I hope your minds will be
greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my
life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under
any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as
these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this
pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air,
which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so
unaffected, so earnest, and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has
decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling,
and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament
would be almost an impertinence.
Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply
I feel your kindness. This watch, with which you have presented me,
shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my
wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall
reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you that after
this night the object of those labours will not less than before be to
uphold the right and to do good. And when I have done with time and its
measurement, this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven
boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways,
or to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only
possible, but probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of
years hence, who knows? in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of
Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan.
Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts, I can
assure you that the memory of to-night, and of your picturesque and
interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more
hear the lightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired
in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment.
* * * * *
[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr.
Dickens said:]
THERE may be a great variety of conflicting opinions with regard to
farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm;
but, however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be,
there can be but one opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer,—and it is
the health of that distinguished agriculturist which I have to propose.
In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for
anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it _is_, exceedingly
important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but
I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I
positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very
rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that, we
shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of
wisdom, which must spring up when ever he is sown, I take leave to
propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which
he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget.
XXV.
LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862.
[At a Dinner of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, the
following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the chair:—]
SEVEN or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever being
called upon to fill the chair at an anniversary festival of the Artists’
General Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest reference to
such an occasion, I selected the administration of that Charity as the
model on which I desired that another should be reformed, both as
regarded the mode in which the relief was afforded, and the singular
economy with which its funds were administered. As a proof of the latter
quality during the past year, the cost of distributing £1,126 among the
recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more than
£100, inclusive of all office charges and expenses. The experience and
knowledge of those entrusted with the management of the funds are a
guarantee that the last available farthing of the funds will be
distributed among proper and deserving recipients. Claiming, on my part,
to be related in some degree to the profession of an artist, I disdain to
stoop to ask for charity, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, on
behalf of the Artists. In its broader and higher signification of
generous confidence, lasting trustfulness, love and confiding belief, I
very readily associate that cardinal virtue with art. I decline to
present the artist to the notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as
a strange, unaccountable, moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly in the
street of life to be helped over the road by the crossing-sweeper; on the
contrary, I present the artist as a reasonable creature, a sensible
gentleman, and as one well acquainted with the value of his time, and
that of other people, as if he were in the habit of going on high ’Change
every day. The Artist whom I wish to present to the notice of the
Meeting is one to whom the perfect enjoyment of the five senses is
essential to every achievement of his life. He can gain no wealth nor
fame by buying something which he never touched, and selling it to
another who would also never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike
out for himself every spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps
consumed him. He must win the battle of life with his own hand, and with
his own eyes, and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign,
non-commissioned officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms,
infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I ask
help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a cripple
from his birth, but I ask it as part payment of a great debt which all
sensible and civilised creatures owe to art, as a mark of respect to art,
as a decoration—not as a badge—as a remembrance of what this land, or any
land, would be without art, and as the token of an appreciation of the
works of the most successful artists of this country. With respect to
the society of which I am the advocate, I am gratified that it is so
liberally supported by the most distinguished artists, and that it has
the confidence of men who occupy the highest rank as artists, above the
reach of reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, and
whose support is above all price. Artists who have obtained wide-world
reputation know well that many deserving and persevering men, or their
widows and orphans, have received help from this fund, and some of the
artists who have received this help are now enrolled among the
subscribers to the Institution.
XXVI.
LONDON, MAY 20, 1862.
[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as
chairman, at the annual Festival of the Newsvendors’ and Provident
Institution, held at the Freemasons’ Tavern on the above date.]
WHEN I had the honour of being asked to preside last year, I was
prevented by indisposition, and I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins,
to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellent
speech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speech with
considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong misgiving that
I had better have presided last year with neuralgia in my face and my
subject in my head, rather than preside this year with my neuralgia all
gone and my subject anticipated. Therefore, I wish to preface the toast
this evening by making the managers of this Institution one very solemn
and repentant promise, and it is, if ever I find myself obliged to
provide a substitute again, they may rely upon my sending the most
speechless man of my acquaintance.
The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of the
universality of the newsman’s calling. Nothing, I think, is left for me
but to imagine the newsman’s burden itself, to unfold one of those
wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take a
bird’s-eye view of its general character and contents. So, if you
please, choosing my own time—though the newsman cannot choose his time,
for he must be equally active in winter or summer, in sunshine or sleet,
in light or darkness, early or late—but, choosing my own time, I shall
for two or three moments start off with the newsman on a fine May
morning, and take a view of the wonderful broadsheets which every day he
scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thing that occurs
to me following the newsman is, that every day we are born, that every
day we are married—some of us—and that every day we are dead;
consequently, the first thing the newsvendor’s column informs me is, that
Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is
dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the next
column, is that Atkins has grown to be seventeen years old, and that he
has run away; for, at last, my eye lights on the fact that William A.,
who is seventeen years old, is adjured immediately to return to his
disconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the satisfaction
of everyone. I am afraid he will never return, simply because, if he had
meant to come back, he would never have gone away. Immediately below, I
find a mysterious character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is
only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, by several figures,
and several stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation that
the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that the
elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my
industrious friend, the newsman, I find there are great fleets of ships
bound to all parts of the earth, that they all want a little more
stowage, a little more cargo, that they have a few more berths to let,
that they have all the most spacious decks, that they are all built of
teak, and copper-bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience,
and that they are all A1 at Lloyds’, and anywhere else. Still glancing
over the shoulder of my friend the newsman, I find I am offered all kinds
of house-lodging, clerks, servants, and situations, which I can possibly
or impossibly want. I learn, to my intense gratification, that I need
never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my
complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; that if
I have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or Turkish baths, I am
told where to get them, and that, if I want an income of seven pounds
a-week, I may have it by sending half-a-crown in postage-stamps. Then I
look to the police intelligence, and I can discover that I may bite off a
human living nose cheaply, but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a
calf from a shop-window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find
that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of killing an
inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little incident will not
affect the testimonials to my character, but that I shall be described as
a most amiable young man, and as, above all things, remarkable for the
singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. Then I turn my
eye to the Fine Arts, and, under that head, I see that a certain “J. O.”
has most triumphantly exposed a certain “J. O. B.,” which “J. O. B.” was
remarkable for this particular ugly feature, that I was requested to
deprive myself of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that
time it was to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for
my courtesy in having my picture most impertinently covered with a wet
blanket. To sum up the results of a glance over my newsman’s shoulder,
it gives a comprehensive knowledge of what is going on over the continent
of Europe, and also of what is going on over the continent of America, to
say nothing of such little geographical regions as India and China.
Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s shoulders from the
whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, that most
promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on steamboats, railway
stations, and at every turn. His profits are small, he has a great
amount of anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wear and
tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and he is looked
for with pleasurable excitement every day, except when he lends the paper
for an hour, and when he is punctual in calling for it, which is
sometimes very painful. I think the lesson we can learn from our newsman
is some new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of
its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent lesson,
some members of the trade originated this society, which affords them
assistance in time of sickness and indigence. The subscription is
infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five shillings. Looking at the
returns before me, the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but
it has only been slow for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure.
The pensions granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded
capital, and, therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as the
Bank. It is stated that there are several newsvendors who are not
members of this society; but that is true in all institutions which have
come under my experience. The persons who are most likely to stand in
need of the benefits which an institution confers, are usually the
persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late.
XXVII.
LONDON, MAY 11, 1864.
[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at a
public meeting, for the purpose of founding the Shakespeare Schools, in
connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the following
address:]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is
the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be very
careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after him.
Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to be the cause of
speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches with
exemplary attention than to stand up to make them; so I shall confine
myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as
plain and as short an exposition as I can possibly give you of the
reasons why we come together.
First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in
commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do with any
commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that
mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by no
means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration were
a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be
pursuing precisely the same object, though we should not pursue it under
precisely the same circumstances. The facts are these: There is, as you
know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic
College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in
the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which dates some five or
six years back, expressly provides for the establishment of schools in
connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the
scheme, when it was explained to him, was specially interesting to his
Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the
desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found
educational institutions for the rising generation, as well as to
establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least
having their faces turned towards the setting sun. The leading members
of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing
necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their
harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, good-will,
and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their efforts
to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the
respected gentleman {177} under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I
hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always
am to see him here. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster
and his brothers and sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this
present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are
built, completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of
them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds
are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the
nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster
was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the
establishment of the schools, when, this Tercentenary celebration being
in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare
Committee their just and reasonable claim to participate in the results
of any subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the
committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of
Shakespeare’s own art, through the education of their children, was
surely a monument worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the
committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the
public good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim
the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to
understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the
Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those schools, as a
design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to find
a new self-supporting public school; with this additional feature, that
it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two
separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land
belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no
charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head.
It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting
public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a
large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property
in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a
project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to
be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their schools
the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the followers of
Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in them. With this view, it is
confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for
forty foundation scholars—say, twenty girls and twenty boys—who shall
always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall always be the
children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you
will understand, is to be equal to the best existing public school. It
is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it
is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely,
and as cheaply as any existing public school.
Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are
foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at nearly all our old
schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our
standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanising
art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time be
doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its
account in it. Taking this view of the case—and I cannot be satisfied to
take any lower one—I cannot make a sorry face about “the poor player.” I
think it is a term very much misused and very little understood—being, I
venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players themselves.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to you
exceptionally in this wise—that he follows a peculiar and precarious
vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of accumulating
money—that that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many
undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one—that it is not a
vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but
in which he must earn every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the
aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and
his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is
reason enough to render him some little help in opening for his children
their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not
often found, except under the pressure of necessity, or where there is
strong hereditary talent—which is always an exceptional case—that the
children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore
need not in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they
would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the
reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction and
usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in that
market’s over-rich superabundance.
This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of
our English public schools. On the committee stands the name of that
eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire
this liberal spirit, and your admiration—which I cordially share—brings
me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is not in
England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has
been called a little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is so, with
the exception of one of life’s worst foibles—for, as far as I know,
nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence of servility to
mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boy
there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him.
We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank,
free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I
apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these
later times that objection has been made to children of dramatic artists
in certain little snivelling private schools—but in public schools never.
Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in
recognizing the capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a
little hole-and-corner place of education for their children exclusively,
but in addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to
them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a
public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is now to
be found.
I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have
endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the
possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed
condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up
a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry
in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he
distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you
have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong
foundation of these schools to-day, I will call, as the mover of the
first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell.
XXVIII.
LONDON, MAY 9, 1865.
[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of the
Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in proposing the
toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—Dr. Johnson’s experience of that club, the members
of which have travelled over one another’s minds in every direction, is
not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual president of a
society like this. Having on previous occasions said everything about it
that he could possibly find to say, he is again produced, with the same
awful formalities, to say everything about it that he cannot possibly
find to say. It struck me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now to
Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred president is very
like that of the stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday. That
unfortunate animal when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes
place, generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at a cool trot,
venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives,
and there subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence, until he is
again brought out to be again followed by exactly the same field, under
exactly the same circumstances, next Easter Monday.
The difficulties of the situation—and here I mean the president and not
the stag—are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the
peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity,
reality, and usefulness, believe me—for I have carefully considered the
point—it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it
were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of wool bears
no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a
word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were lavished in
patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small
annuities for hard-working people who have themselves contributed to its
funds—if its management were intrusted to people who could by no
possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain,
business, practical hands—if it hoarded when it ought to spend—if it got
by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress
you very much by my indignation. If its managers could tell me that it
was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had
been kept by Mr. Edmunds—or by “Tom,”—if its treasurer had run away with
the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings.
But I have no such chance. Just as a nation is happy whose records are
barren, so is a society fortunate that has no history—and its president
unfortunate. I can only assure you that this society continues its
plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it does a
great deal of good at a very small cost, and that the objects of its care
and the bulk of its members are faithful working servants of the
public—sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons,
and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street-corners, at every
railway train, at every steam-boat; through the agency of every
establishment and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as
master or as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous,
while their trouble and responsibility are very great.
The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that wonderful
engine—the newspaper press. Still I think we all know very well that
they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes is to a
good water supply. Just as a goodly store of water at Watford would be a
tantalization to thirsty London if it were not brought into town for its
use, so any amount of news accumulated at Printing-house Square, or Fleet
Street, or the Strand, would be if there were no skill and enterprise
engaged in its dissemination.
We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every-day life, that “We
never know the value of anything until we lose it.” Let us try the
newsvendors by the test. A few years ago we discovered one morning that
there was a strike among the cab-drivers. Now, let us imagine a strike
of newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in vain for the newspapers.
Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying to know the shipping news,
the commercial news, the foreign news, the legal news, the criminal news,
the dramatic news. Imagine the paralysis on all the provincial
exchanges; the silence and desertion of all the newsmen’s exchanges in
London. Imagine the circulation of the blood of the nation and of the
country standing still,—the clock of the world. Why, even Mr. Reuter,
the great Reuter—whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by
the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell
and wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear—think how even he
would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they
would become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up
the threads and stitches of the electric needle, and scatter them over
the land.