The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-11-13
The Lecturing Nuisance and the Hon.
Teresa Helverton.


Russia will be Of very short duration.
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The Lecturing Nuisance and the Hon.
Teresa Yelvcrton.
Lecturing is growing to be nuisance
man may breathe badly, speak badly, look
badly, act badly and live badly; but, when
he has failed at everything else, from politics
10 prize fighting, he buys yard of red baize
and begs pine table, rents reading rvom
and borrows cracked tumbler, and takes new
start in the world as public lecturer Let
him be famous or infamou, he can drAw an
audience; the one great requisite being maxi
: mum of crime, or maximum of morality.
Third-rate, and thrtieth-rate, people under
take to measure the intellect of a NEWTON,
STAEL, SHAKESPEARE, or MILTON; to explain
The strategy of HANNIBAL or NAPOLEON; to
find remedy for every nuisance, from the So
cial evil to crying babies; to teach the many
mouthed public to be keen in trade, and adroit
| In finances to give lively descriptions of the
| Noachian deluge, and delineate the scenery OF
| the Lunar Mountains; to show in one hour more
wisdom, chicanery, brass, and stupidity, than
have been und in any one ordinary man, from
| he days of CAGLIosrRo to this era Of steaming
| civilization.
Curiosity is the motive power. The au-
| diences do not care much for what is read or
said, but they pay their one dollar,-reserved
seats fifty cents extra,--for the privilege OF
seeing face to face, some somebody of whom
there has been talk, or concerning whom many
an ugly rumor has been put in circulation.
Women make up large proportion OF the at
tendants on public lectures; and, if they can
secure woman lecturer, whether ANNA DIck-
1SsoN or the "Black Swan" their glory and
delight is complete.
| 1t is sad nevertheless, to see lady who has
carried with her the sympathy of two conti-
nents;-who has pleaded her cause in person
at the bar of justice, and melted to unwonted
tears full bench of hoary-headed Judges
who has fought manly stand-up fight against
the contradictory technicalities of arbitrary
laws; making market Of her misiortunes,
holding up her woes to public commiseration,
and selling delicacy and reserve, for tears by
the pint an coincidence by tho kerchiefful.
Mrs. TERESA YELvERToN was pitied and
respected but, with her appearance last week
in New York as public lecturer, her pedestal
of dignity slipped aside, and she fell to the
level of strolling mountebank, or many-sylla-
bled prestidigitateur. Not long since, she spoke
of her own love-letters as 'the sepulchre, or
funeral urn, which contains the ashes Of oil
that ever was, of all that ever can be;"-in the
same urn, she is now preparing to hide all that
was left OF grief for undeserved misfortune.
But Mrs. YELvERToN is a novice in her new
trade; and, unless she changes her tactics, she
will have q brief and inglorious career. At
her first appearance she read selections from
.'Locksley Hail." ''Sheridan's Ride" and the
Charge of the Light Brigade" and did not
read them well. This was not what was
wanted The American public paid its dollar
for something personally spicy, and briskly ex-
citing. It wanted 'Yelverton Hall" and the
Walks through the Crimean Hospitals" and
..The Charges of Forsaken Wife against her
Miscreant Husband" What were TENNYsoN
TO the love-letters Of resi- life; what were
SHERIDAN to the ''mystic shores" and "treach-
erous waves" SO graphically portrayed by the
Hon. TERESA? Mrs. YELvERToN herself says
that her love-letters were written for 'One be-
loved eye alone" that they were "the first
bloom of the plum, the first perfume of the
bud which aftertime destroys" The New York
public wants TO know why this amstory
plum" should be made forbidden fruit; why
that romantic "bud" should not befood for the
worm of intelligen. criticism? She is COM
pared to Sappho, Hypatia, or Heloise. Why
then should she put on more airs than those
renowned anachronisms were in the habit of
doing? Why should she not initiate GoE1HE's
Charlotte; and, by her nightly sentimentalism,
earn daily "bread and butter?"
A public lecturer who is not willing to wear
her heart upon har sleeve, to tell all the "emo-
tional effusions" of her soul, to chronicle every
aspiration, and catalogue every sigh, will not
draw, when the first novelty is over. Mrs.
YELvERToN can choose between rock and whirl
pool. She can either give up her public lee
turing, or work herself up to the exigcnces of
the situation, and surfeit her audiences with
the sensational food they constantly require.
In the one case, she will lose notoriety and
dollars; in the other, she will tarnish name,
fame and reputation.