IMMORTAL MEMORY
J.H.A. Lokin
Dear Dickensians,
When Mr. Pecksniff spoke to his assem
bled family, just as I am speaking to you
now, he was collaborating with his greedy
relatives with a view to claiming the inhe
ritance of the rich uncle, Martin Chuz-
zlewit, who had suddenly appeared in
Pecksniffs village. In Pecksniff's own
inimitable words - notice the number of
verbs - he proposed to devise some prac
tical means of inducing his relative - the
rich Martin Chuzzlewit - to dispose him
self to listen to the promptings of nature
and not to the there Pecksniff stopped,
being - for the first and for the last time -
at a loss for a word. He meant the Syrens
but the name of those fabulous animals
(pagan, I regret to say, said Mr. Pecksniff)
who used to sing in the water, had quite
escaped him.
Mr. George Chuzzlewit suggested: Swans.
No, said Mr. Pecksniff. Not swans. Very
like swans too, thank you. At this point
there spoke one of those characters who
appear (just for one flash) in Dickens's
works and then vanish again immediately,
nevertheless to be remembered for ever. It
was a great nephew, very dark and very
hairy and apparently born for no particular
purpose but to save looking-glasses the
trouble of reflecting more than just the
first idea and sketchy notion of a face,
subsequently never finished off. This
nephew with the outline of a countenance
speaking for the first and last time on that
occasion, propounded: Oysters.
No, said Mr. Pecksniff, nor oysters. But
by no means unlike oysters, a very ex
cellent idea, thank you my dear sir, very
much.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the moment I
feel just like this nephew. The comparison
lies not so much in the description of his
exterior - although my intimate friends
will recognize the likeness immediately -
but in the quality of the remark. To all the
words my illustrious predecessors have
uttered about Dickens I can add nothing
better than something like 'oysters', but I
hope my audience will react as the virtu
ous Pecksniff and will say: Very good,
thank you, by no means unlike what you
said, a very excellent idea, thank you my
dear sir, very much.
We are very proud that you have managed
to come to Haarlem from all parts of the
world and listen so patiently to our En
glish. In this respect you are much more
polite than we are for you at least feign to
understand our English whereas we imme
diately make clear that we do not under
stand one syllable of your Dutch, if ever
you attempt it.
We are proud that we have you gathered
together here in Haarlem in conviviality
and merriment; yet our pride is misplaced,
for it is not our merit that has brought you
to Haarlem, but the writings and the geni
us of one man, Charles Dickens. He left
us in his inimitable way a message as old
as mankind and yet as up-to-date as on the
day he set it down. He made it explicit in
the preface to Oliver Twist, but it could
have been written in the preface of any of
his books. Dickens laid bare in his book
Oliver Twist, as he put it, 'the principle of
good surviving through every adverse
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