If I have put into my book
anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of
death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one
word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in
time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved--something
which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I
kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of
the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially
from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The
Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an
adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on
blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my
mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the
sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from
personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose,
and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me
are now foremost in their approbation.
If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little
incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has
given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not
mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty
again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I
never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is
one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be
proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall
never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of
gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people,
her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets.
And if in the future works which may lie before me you should
discern--God grant you may!--a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I
pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a
Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with
the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you
with a heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I do
assure you.
[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson,
Mr. Dickens said:-]
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 approbation, and the proposing
of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its
acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and
coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland-
-a literature which he has done much to render famous through the
world, and of which he has been for many years--as I hope and
believe he will be for many more--a most brilliant and
distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the
land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as
inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old
man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch--Christopher
North.
