Dickens
rose, and spoke as follows:]
Gentlemen,--I don't know how to thank you--I really don't know how.
You would naturally suppose that my former experience would have
given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way would have
been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the reverse,
and I have completely baulked the ancient proverb that "a rolling
stone gathers no moss;" and in my progress to this city I have
collected such a weight of obligations and acknowledgment--I have
picked up such an enormous mass of fresh moss at every point, and
was so struck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that I
thought I could never by any possibility grow any bigger. I have
made, continually, new accumulations to such an extent that I am
compelled to stand still, and can roll no more!
Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stories,
or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their own accord--as I do
not--it presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent
holds good in this case. When I have remembered the short time I
have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and the
poor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of,
and forming an acquaintance with it, I have felt it almost a duty
to decline the honours you so generously heap upon me, and pass
more quietly among you. For Argus himself, though he had but one
mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the reception of a
public entertainment once a-week too much for his greatest
activity; and, as I would lose no scrap of the rich instruction and
the delightful knowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already
I have gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and common jails),-
-I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my way rejoicing, and
for the future to shake hands with America, not at parties but at
home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I say to-night, with a full heart,
and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, and
shall ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your affectionate and
your noble greeting, which it is utterly impossible to convey in
words.
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