Speeches: Literary and Social

I HAVE the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approba...

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 b...

There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their public position and service, or endeared to you by frequent intercourse, or by their zealous efforts on behalf of the...

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...

And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed here last November, observed a strict silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but in refere...

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...

but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how in my mind I mainly connect that occasion with the present. When I looked round on the vast assemblage, and obse...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It was rather hard of you to take away my breath before I spoke a word; but I would not thank you, even if I could, for the favour which has set me in this...

Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that. You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already one of mark in my calendar, it be...

Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say, on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we have bui...

Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 persons engaged upon the various railways of the United Kingdom cannot be rich; and although their duties...

Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is out, and shall have the great interest of seeing...

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 abse...

And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which th...

Not a few of the dwellings into which Mr. Dickens conducts us in the course of some of his best-known stories, have their walls decorated with prints illustrative of familiar sc...

As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect the business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking prosperity to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, it bec...

A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man, sometimes bowstringing his dependants indiscriminately in his m...

Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the “Britannia” steam-packet, Captain Hewett, on the 3rd of January, 1842. At Boston, Hartford, and New York, he wa...

SIR,—I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in the profession of literature, represents upon this committee a separate and distinct branch of the profession, tha...

CHARLES DICKENS was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. At that time his father, Mr. John Dickens, held an office in the Navy Pay Department, the duties of which...

Scene, the City of Peterborough—dreamy and quiet enough then, though now a flourishing railroad terminus—a silent city, with a grand old Norman cathedral, round which the rooks...

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 clo...

If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (Viscount Hardinge), he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate his brief thanks with one word of reference to the noble pictur...

“You know what the feeling is, after having written a letter, sealed it, and sent it off. I shall picture you reading this, and answering it, before it has lain one night in the...

“Next comes Nancy. Readers of the old editions of ‘Oliver Twist’ will doubtless recollect how desperately difficult it was to fight against the dreadful impression which Mr. Geo...