Speeches: Literary and Social

LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851

[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held at
the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied
the chair, and in giving the toast of the evening said:-]

I have so often had the satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in
this place, to the usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose
behalf we are assembled, that I should be really sensible of the
disadvantage of having now nothing to say in proposing the toast
you all anticipate, if I were not well assured that there is really
nothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you on the old
grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could render those grounds of
greater weight than they have hitherto successfully proved to you.

Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other
public societies and endowments, is represented by no building,
whether of stone, or brick, or glass, like that astonishing
evidence of the skill and energy of my friend Mr. Paxton, which all
the world is now called upon to admire, and the great merit of
which, as you learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to
have fallen down long before it was built, and yet that it would by
no means consent to doing so--although, I say, this Association
possesses no architectural home, it is nevertheless as plain a
fact, rests on as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front,
as any building, in the world. And the best and the utmost that
its exponent and its advocate can do, standing here, is to point it
out to those who gather round it, and to say, "judge for
yourselves."

It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that portion
of the company whose previous acquaintance with it may have been
limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose
benefits are confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It
is a society whose claims are always preferred in the name of the
whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted
to a state of theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more
suited to present theatrical requirements than a string of pack-
horses would be suited to the conveyance of traffic between London
and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentleman, with the gout in
his vitals, brushed and got-up once a year to look as vigorous as
possible, and brought out for a public airing by the few survivors
of a large family of nephews and nieces, who afterwards double-lock
the street-door upon the poor relations. It is not a theatrical
association which insists that no actor can share its bounty who
has not walked so many years on those boards where the English
tongue is never heard--between the little bars of music in an
aviary of singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan of Avon is
never admitted--that bounty which was gathered in the name and for
the elevation of an all-embracing art.

No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind. This
is a theatrical association, expressly adapted to the wants and to
the means of the whole theatrical profession all over England. It
is a society in which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It
is a society which includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or
Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in
the one person, the whole King's army. He may do the "light
business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may
be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still
unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred
years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother
in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family
appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they
sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or
he may be the baron who gives the fete, and who sits uneasily on
the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the fete is going
on. Or he may be the peasant at the fete who comes on the stage to
swell the drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always
turns his glass upside down before he begins to drink out of it.
Or he may be the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house
where the evening party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman
who issues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated
into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy
who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional visit
to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the
witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom
I have observed in country places, that he is much less like the
notion formed from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or
Donalbain of the previous scenes. This society, in short, says,
"Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in your
profession never so high, or never so low, never so haughty, or
never so humble, we offer you the means of doing good to
yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren."

This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a
class of men to take care of their own interests, and giving a
continuous security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and
effort. The actor by the means of this society obtains his own
right, to no man's wrong; and when, in old age, or in disastrous
times, he makes his claim on the institution, he is enabled to say,
"I am neither a beggar, nor a suppliant. I am but reaping what I
sowed long ago." And therefore it is that I cannot hold out to you
that in assisting this fund you are doing an act of charity in the
common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses of that much
abused term, none have more raised my indignation than what I have
heard in this room in past times, in reference to this institution.
I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the wagoner
who has resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has
NOT stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you will be doing an
act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and
this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those
who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to
pretend to entreat from you an act of charity.

I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own heart,
and confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments for the
actor's art? Not peculiarly because it is a profession often
pursued, and as it were marked, by poverty and misfortune--for
other callings, God knows, have their distresses--nor because the
actor has sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering,
ay, even of death itself, to play his part before us--for all of
us, in our spheres, have as often to do violence to our feelings
and to hide our hearts in fighting this great battle of life, and
in discharging our duties and responsibilities. But the art of the
actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous,
which we are all familiar with. If any man were to tell me that he
denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him
one question--whether he remembered his first play?

If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to that
great night, and call to mind the bright and harmless world which
then opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear favourably of the
effect upon your liberality on this occasion from our Secretary.

This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind--the sixth time we
have had this fine child down after dinner. His nurse, a very
worthy person of the name of Buckstone, who has an excellent
character from several places, will presently report to you that
his chest is perfectly sound, and that his general health is in the
most thriving condition. Long may it be so; long may it thrive and
grow; long may we meet (it is my sincere wish) to exchange our
congratulations on its prosperity; and longer than the line of
Banquo may be that line of figures which, as its patriotic share in
the national debt, a century hence shall be stated by the Governor
and Company of the Bank of England.