The Republican journal., 1872-10-03
BOSTON, Sept. 80.


HOUSE MRS. STOWE READING HER
OWN WORKS.
BosToN, Sept. 80.
The lecture season begins this week.
To read the prospectuses of the different
courses and all the independent announce
ments of solitary orators, one gathers q
vast idea of the intellectual pabulum
necessary to the New England mind.
These courses are gotten up, however,
for two purposes-reciprOca money max
ing and amusement; and if the race of
lecturers adds instruction or mental i'm
provement to this positive requirement of
money and entertainment, why its clear
gain to the non-educated classes. By that
do not mean benighted ignorance. but
that immense number of persons who are
never guilty of reading anything but
newspapers. The masses who turn out
to hear a popular lecturer, three nights in
seven, do not 60 to be improved-but
rather to be amused, to be warmed and
lighted, and made comfortable for an
hour or So Many of them live in board
ing and lodging houses, and suffer for
those comforts obtainable in we'll lighted
hall-or the American unrest is so strong
in their veins its impossible for them to
remain quietly in the bosom of their
families, and theatre amusement is too eX-
pensive a pastme for them or they do not
approve of it-and is dOubly craved on that
account. Fun or "tall talking" OF the
radical, oratorical style always draws.
Stale Jokes will get laughed at as though
they were Just coined. Stories with per
sonal illusions and spread eaglism well
done, always 'takes," and any subject
bordering on the forbidden fills the house
Popularity above everything good taste,
morals or the insinuating argument for
oral education via. the lecture rooms
the one thing required, and on the whole,
if none of the propreties are infringed, il
is well enough to cultivate a more lively
tone, and give people something to smile
about Mr. Fields has done his part
towards encouraging "cheertulness' in
his listeners, and in the world at large
There is another class frequentng lectures
that is SO thoroughly an out growth Of
Massachusetts, and gives such a moral
weight to an audience, that We're it absent
a lecturer familiar with the ground would
feel much aggrieved. 1t is eminently
critical and at the same time so CONVEX
SAINT with the ways of 4 lecture room, so
thoroughly at home from long residence
there, that the female brings her crochet
ing, and the male reads his evening paper
until the predatory organ concert is well
over All the questions of the day, and
those great issues of nations puzZling
lesser minds, are clear rs moonshine to
them both. Beecher and Anna Dickinson
are their high priests. Do not contound
these people with that animus OF modern
literature, that refinement Of thought and
radical intellectually whose home is Con
cord, and who scorns all the onter rings
Of our literary Saturn, tor they are different
beings If find myself in a nest Of Con
cordltes at some highly spiced mental
feast, always bring away with me q
crystaization of strong minded radcallsm
it is the air they breathe, and it fastens
on whoever is within range-in spite of
ones self Massive, incsive features, deep
eyes that look over you without seeing,
and ears that express an unaccountable
power to hear beyond ''the roar of silence"
are merely physical expressions of deeply
rooted characteristics and a cultivated
fanaticism that belong to a certain kind
of Boston audience. Minglmg with them
is that dllitante fashionable clique who
patronize all the higher grades of econ
versations'' and lectures because they
belong to the brother and ssterhood,
and because they like 10 swathe
themselves in bands of isms and then
call it progression. Its Il cheap re
Election on their Paris dresses OF a noble
intention, however impractical and ideal.
These are some of the people that fill our
halls and listen to their own ideas dressed
can't write, or get some one to write \
lecture for them to deliver, make up select
and cultivated audiences, and entice the
fraternity into a field where money is
picked up quicker than in the magazine
world
This winter we have eight courses
OF lectures, and such chances tor in
struction and entertainment rs We're never
offered before. The Bay State, Parker
Fraternity, South End, Lectures on English
Literature, a Free Lowell course of In
dustrial Art, Boston Lyceum, called the
Great Star course Broadway and Berkeley.
Isn't it enough to turn ones head to CON
template such enterprise or calculate the
immense amount of pleasure the public is
to enjoy therefrom this winter The lists
comprise all the old stagers and prime
tavorites, and few hedglings who mean
to tumble out of the magazine writer's
rank into full voiced orators, and the three
great English attractions, Froude, Ed
mund Yates and George Macdonald
The American lecture field ia indeed a
gold mine to anybody with a name, and
can be worked with immense profit for
one season at least, no matter how tame
or uninteresting the man or his subject.
Its the fashion to lecture and its the fashion
TO go, and while the epidemic RACES no.
body will sneeze at receiving two or three
hundred dollars night, or seriously object
to hearing distinguished man. OF seeing
pretty women in pretty clothes.
With the rest OF the curious confess to
desire to see Macdonald though as to
his power as lecturer have not much
hope. He is too spiritual too unreal
writer, = man of too little practical sensa-
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