" 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.
SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869.
[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet
held in his honour at St. George's Hall, Liverpool, after his
health had been proposed by Lord Dufferin.]
Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, although I have been so well
accustomed of late to the sound of my own voice in this
neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion
is, believe me, very, very different in respect of those
overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to
me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from hearing him in
public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when he
was quite alone--so you can form no conception, from the specimen
before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and
again in some of the innermost moments of my future life.
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