SPEECHES: LITERARY AND SOCIAL BY CHARLES DICKENS




SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.



[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided
over by the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his
health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks
as follows:-]

If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better
able to thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened
to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I
could have heard as you heard the "thoughts that breathe and words
that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I
should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at
his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every
demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received
his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his
kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to
respond as I would do to your cordial greeting--possessing, heaven
knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way.

The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me
very pleasing--a path strewn with flowers and cheered with
sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had