Speeches: Literary and Social

NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868

[Mr. Dickens's last Reading in the United States was given at the
Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was about to
retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came
forward and spoke thus:-]

Ladies and gentlemen,--The shadow of one word has impended over me
this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must
fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is
not measured by their length, and two much shorter words express
the round of our human existence. When I was reading "David
Copperfield" a few evenings since, I felt there was more than usual
significance in the words of Peggotty, "My future life lies over
the sea." And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly
that I was shortly to establish such an alibi as would have
satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been
set up between us, while they have involved for me something more
than mere devotion to a task, have been by you sustained with the
readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.

Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured, however,
that you will not pass from my mind. I shall often realise you as
I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English
summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public
audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with
the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and
gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God bless you, and God bless
the land in which I leave you.