To The Immortal memory
Pieter de Groot
10
Mr. President, dear Dickensians,
When I was over in Ireland, recently, I met in a public library a man with one of
Dickens his novels under his arm. David Copperfield it was, if I remember correctly.
I congratulated him with his selection: "an excellent choice, sir, that will carry you
through the dreary and dismal evenings".
The weather in Ireland, you must know, is usually dreary and dismal, so 1 couldn't
go wrong there with that last remark.
We got talking and he told me he had so far read five novels of Dickens and was
determent to read them all. I envied him in a certain sense. For think about it, that
there are ten of Dickens' novels you haven't yet read. Think about what is still to
come, the pleasures still in store for you. Just imagine.
I remember when I first started to read Dickens. David Copperfield it was and when
1 had finished it, 1 picked up another of his novels, and so on, till 1 had read them all.
I went to Scotland that summer and stayed in my hotel room for a full day for 1 had
to finish Bleak House. That day was the only day that year that the sun shone in
Scotland and the landlord urged me to come out and enjoy myself. I answered that 1
was enjoying myself and not to bother me anymore. The landlady, looking really
worried, asked if I needed to see a medical man but I quoted Dickens' famous last
words (as the tradition will have it), "no doctors".
As you may have noticed by the way, 1 am a fervent visitor of countries with awful
weather. They attract me like a burning lamp in the night attracts moths. They make
me feel at home. The lovely thing with reading Dickens is, that you can read his
novels again and again, and you will discover, every time you re-read them, new
turnings, new insights, new perspectives, all that you've missed the first time, or the
second time, when you read the book. Only a short while ago we had the pleasure of
hearing Dr. Tigges talk to us about details in Dickens. He gave us some examples
how well Dickens choose the right words, how much there is to see in the text. The
words he uses are carefully picked. By Dickens, the plotlines may wander off a bit
now and then, but the details are so well thought through.
Now let me put a question to you: is it enough for one to just read Dickens and
ignore all other writers? Can one live on a strict diet of Dickens alone, (well, with
exception of the fine book our honoured guest wrote off course, one has always to
be polite to guests, besides, it's about Dickens)
Are there here among us tonight whom confine themselves to Dickens alone.
They enjoy off course a practical point. They can do away with all the other books,
collected through the years. So, just think about the enormous amount of space you
will have left in your library after disposing of them. It will be shrunken to the
dimensions of Mr. Micawber's library. For he could place all his books in one little
chest of drawers, and still called it his library. But, as we know, it all went wrong
with Mr. Micawber's library. When he had to sell his possessions, the books went
first. Brought to an old bookstall on City Road by David Copperfield, and sold for
whatever they would bring. Copperfield describes the keeper of the bookstall like
this: "He used to get tipsy every night. More than once, when I went there early I
