most generous sympathy, and
"the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have
"thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour,
"to retire upon those older associations between us,
"which date from much further back than these,
"thenceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art
"that first brought us together. Ladies and gentle-
"men, in two short weeks from this time I hope that
"you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series
"of readings at which my assistance will be indispen-
"sable ; but from these garish lights I vanish now for
"evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and
"affectionate fare well."

The manly, cordial voice only faltered once at the very last. The
mournful modulation of it in the utterance of the words, "From these
garish lights I vanish now for evermore" lingers to this moment like a
haunting melody in our remembrance. Within a few weeks afterwards those
very words were touchingly inscribed on the Funeral Card distributed at
the doors of Westminster Abbey on the day of the Novelist's interment in
Poet's Corner. As he moved from the platform after the utterance of the
last words of his address and, with his head drooping in emotion, passed
behind the screen on his way to his retiring-room, a cordial hand was
placed for one moment with a sympathetic grasp upon his shoulder. The
popularity won by Charles Dickens, even among the million who never saw
him or spoke with him, amounted to nothing less than personal affection.
Among his friends and intimates no great author has ever been more
truly or more tenderly beloved. The prolonged thunder of applause that
followed him to his secluded room at the back of the platform, whither
he had withdrawn alone, recalled him after the lapse of some minutes for
another instant into the presence of his last audience, from whom, with
a kiss of his hand, he then indeed parted for evermore.

THE END.

BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

End of Project Gutenberg's Charles Dickens as a Reader, by Charles Kent

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