Speeches: Literary and Social

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 {11} to exercise his
potent art. To him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter, God
bless him!