Speeches: Literary and Social

MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843

[This address was delivered at a soiree of the members of the
Manchester, Athenaeum, at which Mr. Dickens presided. Among the
other speakers on the occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.]

Ladies and gentlemen,--I am sure I need scarcely tell you that I am
very proud and happy; and that I take it as a great distinction to
be asked to come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when,
even with the brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see before
me, I can hail it as the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance
of all, that we assemble together here, even here, upon neutral
ground, where we have no more knowledge of party difficulties, or
public animosities between side and side, or between man and man,
than if we were a public meeting in the commonwealth of Utopia.

Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds,
this assembly is not less interesting to me, believe me--although,
personally, almost a stranger here--than it is interesting to you;
and I take it, that it is not of greater importance to all of us
than it is to every man who has learned to know that he has an
interest in the moral and social elevation, the harmless
relaxation, the peace, happiness, and improvement, of the community
at large. Not even those who saw the first foundation of your
Athenaeum laid, and watched its progress, as I know they did,
almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature,
until it reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town--not
even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its
usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am
persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may
thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who--
whether consciously or unconsciously, matters not--have, in the
principle of its success and bright example, a deep and personal
concern.

It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town,
this little world of labour, that she should stand out foremost in
the foremost rank in such a cause. It well becomes her, that,
among her numerous and noble public institutions, she should have a
splendid temple sacred to the education and improvement of a large
class of those who, in their various useful stations, assist in the
production of our wealth, and in rendering her name famous through
the world. I think it is grand to know, that, while her factories
re-echo with the clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl and
rattle of machinery, the immortal mechanism of God's own hand, the
mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and
tended in a palace of its own. That it is a structure deeply fixed
and rooted in the public spirit of this place, and built to last, I
have no more doubt, judging from the spectacle I see before me, and
from what I know of its brief history, than I have of the reality
of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars that spring up about
us.

You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the Athenaeum
was projected at a time when commerce was in a vigorous and
flourishing condition, and when those classes of society to which
it particularly addresses itself were fully employed, and in the
receipt of regular incomes. A season of depression almost without
a parallel ensued, and large numbers of young men employed in
warehouses and offices suddenly found their occupation gone, and
themselves reduced to very straitened and penurious circumstances.
This altered state of things led, as I am told, to the compulsory
withdrawal of many of the members, to a proportionate decrease in
the expected funds, and to the incurrence of a debt of 3,000
pounds. By the very great zeal and energy of all concerned, and by
the liberality of those to whom they applied for help, that debt is
now in rapid course of being discharged. A little more of the same
indefatigable exertion on the one hand, and a little more of the
same community of feeling upon the other, and there will be no such
thing; the figures will be blotted out for good and all, and, from
that time, the Athenaeum may be said to belong to you, and to your
heirs for ever.

But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most thriving,
and in its least flourishing condition--here, with its cheerful
rooms, its pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library
of 6,000 volumes, its classes for the study of the foreign
languages, elocution, music; its opportunities of discussion and
debate, of healthful bodily exercise, and, though last not least--
for by this I set great store, as a very novel and excellent
provision--its opportunities of blameless, rational enjoyment, here
it is, open to every youth and man in this great town, accessible
to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all these benefits, and
the inestimable ends to which they lead, can set aside one sixpence
weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the subscription, and upon
the fact that the number of members has considerably more than
doubled within the last twelve months, as strides in the path of
the very best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the
history of mankind.

I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a
prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake up
the ashes of the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be
urged by men of all parties against institutions such as this,
whose interests we are met to promote; but their philosophy was
always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short
sentence. How often have we heard from a large class of men wise
in their generation, who would really seem to be born and bred for
no other purpose than to pass into currency counterfeit and
mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some
other criminals to utter base coin--how often have we heard from
them, as an all-convincing argument, that "a little learning is a
dangerous thing?" Why, a little hanging was considered a very
dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, with this
difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous, we had a
great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, we
were to have none at all. Why, when I hear such cruel absurdities
gravely reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt whether the
parrots of society are not more pernicious to its interests than
its birds of prey. I should be glad to hear such people's estimate
of the comparative danger of "a little learning" and a vast amount
of ignorance; I should be glad to know which they consider the most
prolific parent of misery and crime. Descending a little lower in
the social scale, I should be glad to assist them in their
calculations, by carrying them into certain gaols and nightly
refuges I know of, where my own heart dies within me, when I see
thousands of immortal creatures condemned, without alternative or
choice, to tread, not what our great poet calls the "primrose path"
to the everlasting bonfire, but one of jaded flints and stones,
laid down by brutal ignorance, and held together, like the solid
rocks, by years of this most wicked axiom.

Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright in
deed and thought, whether they would rather have ignorant or
enlightened persons in their own employment? Why, we have had
their answer in this building; we have it in this company; we have
it emphatically given in the munificent generosity of your own
merchants of Manchester, of all sects and kinds, when this
establishment was first proposed. But are the advantages derivable
by the people from institutions such as this, only of a negative
character? If a little learning be an innocent thing, has it no
distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon the mind? The
old doggerel rhyme, so often written in the beginning of books,
says that


"When house and lands are gone and spent,
Then learning is most excellent;"


but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, and say that


"Though house and lands be never got,
Learning can give what they canNOT."


And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned by
every man who makes an effort to improve himself in such a place as
the Athenaeum, is self-respect--an inward dignity of character,
which, once acquired and righteously maintained, nothing--no, not
the hardest drudgery, nor the direst poverty--can vanquish. Though
he should find it hard for a season even to keep the wolf--hunger--
from his door, let him but once have chased the dragon--ignorance--
from his hearth, and self-respect and hope are left him. You could
no more deprive him of those sustaining qualities by loss or
destruction of his worldly goods, than you could, by plucking out
his eyes, take from him an internal consciousness of the bright
glory of the sun.

The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his
sphere of hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a
place as the Athenaeum, acquires for himself that property of soul
which has in all times upheld struggling men of every degree, but
self-made men especially and always. He secures to himself that
faithful companion which, while it has ever lent the light of its
countenance to men of rank and eminence who have deserved it, has
ever shed its brightest consolations on men of low estate and
almost hopeless means. It took its patient seat beside Sir Walter
Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; it laid its head upon
the block with More; but it did not disdain to watch the stars with
Ferguson, the shepherd's boy; it walked the streets in mean attire
with Crabbe; it was a poor barber here in Lancashire with
Arkwright; it was a tallow-chandler's son with Franklin; it worked
at shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the plough
with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, it
whispers courage even at this day in ears I could name in Sheffield
and in Manchester.

The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place learns,
the better, gentler, kinder man he must become. When he knows how
much great minds have suffered for the truth in every age and time,
and to what dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will
become more tolerant of other men's belief in all matters, and will
incline more leniently to their sentiments when they chance to
differ from his own. Understanding that the relations between
himself and his employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility,
he will discharge his part of the implied contract cheerfully,
satisfactorily, and honourably; for the history of every useful
life warns him to shape his course in that direction.

The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish kind,
but extend themselves to his home, and to those whom it contains.
Something of what he hears or reads within such walls can scarcely
fail to become at times a topic of discourse by his own fireside,
nor can it ever fail to lead to larger sympathies with man, and to
a higher veneration for the great Creator of all the wonders of
this universe. It appears to his home and his homely feeling in
other ways; for at certain times he carries there his wife and
daughter, or his sister, or, possibly, some bright-eyed
acquaintance of a more tender description. Judging from what I see
before me, I think it is very likely; I am sure I would if I could.
He takes her there to enjoy a pleasant evening, to be gay and
happy. Sometimes it may possibly happen that he dates his
tenderness from the Athenaeum. I think that is a very excellent
thing, too, and not the least among the advantages of the
institution. In any case, I am sure the number of bright eyes and
beaming faces which grace this meeting to-night by their presence,
will never be among the least of its excellences in my
recollection.

Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, the
pleasing task your favour has devolved upon me, or the strong and
inspiring confirmation I have to-night, of all the hopes and
reliances I have ever placed upon institutions of this nature. In
the latter point of view--in their bearing upon this latter point--
I regard them as of great importance, deeming that the more
intelligent and reflective society in the mass becomes, and the
more readers there are, the more distinctly writers of all kinds
will be able to throw themselves upon the truthful feeling of the
people and the more honoured and the more useful literature must
be. At the same time, I must confess that, if there had been an
Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some
leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which
was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably
haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity
might probably have lacked the information that certain monsters of
virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and wider
scale, let me say it once again--it is in the effect of such
institutions upon the great social system, and the peace and
happiness of mankind, that I delight to contemplate them; and, in
my heart, I am quite certain that long after your institution, and
others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, the noble
harvest of the seed sown in them will shine out brightly in the
wisdom, the mercy, and the forbearance of another race.