Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-03-23
Wnttcr.on.sLeeture.


that our thoughts refused to bend
themselves upon the lecture or the
lecturer, and were full of nothing
but the South, as she was, as she is
and as she is to be. We were not
only surprised at this, but mortified
and irritated for we were grateful
to the man who had given us the
most delightful evenings entertain
ment we have enjoyed for years
and wanted to express our gratitude,
but our mind wandered off to
thoughts too deep for tears on the
chequered past history of the South,
and yearning specHlations on its
future.
After all, is not this the most
transcendent merit that can be at
tributed to speaker, that he can so
possess his hearers with the spirit of
his subject as to annihilate himself
and fix his hearers thoughts and
emotions upon that of which he is
speaking. The greatest orator of
Greece was willing that hearers
might say of his rival GLOW great
an orator he is, +" provided thatwhen
he himself spoke they would shout,
"Let us go out to fight Philip" So
that perhaps the greatest compli-
ment we can pay to Mr.. Watterson
is to pursue the train of thought in
spired by his discourse, for that too,
if it has any merit, forms part of the
merit of the lecture, being inspired
by it. Our thoughts, then, on We'd
nesday night after leaving the lee
ture room were occupied with the
Southern gentleman so well de-
scribed by he lecturer, and so hap
PLY Disseminated on the one hand
from the clown of the Georgia vii
lage of the Simon Suggs type, and
on the other from the swashbuckler
of the steamboats, on the lower Mis-
sissippi. How completely he is
gone, he and the Southern lady,
both of them delightful reminiscent
ces with as strongly marked an
idiosyncracy as ever formed the
stock in trade of novelist Oh carica-
turist, but they are gone and have
left no trace on the history or fiction
or even the caricature of their day.
The novelists missed them Harriet
Beecher Stowe gives no trace of
them. Not a single typical South
ern gentleman appears in that Won
derful farragO of impossible negroes
and villainous whites, "Uncle Toms
Cabin" But then the true South
erner must be painted in a kindly
spirit, harmonizing with the over
flowing kindness of his own genial
soul, or he can't be painted at all,
and there was not love to soften the
outlines cut by that trenchant pen.
The tourists never found him. Have
our readers read a book called
Greater Britain, written by an
Englishman just after the war ?
He is now a Baronet and Il member
of Parliament. He processes to have
come here to see for himself the con-
dition of Northern and Southern
society after the war. He got well
primed and instructed what he was
to see while he was in Boston; he
accepted intrOductions to an old
negro who had kept a restaurant in
Norfolk, Virginia, and declined let
fnr'S TO Con 40; no wont 70 Mo-
folk, staid there two days, saw some
loafers carOusing and cursing in the
bar-roOm of the hotel, and now he
thought he knew the Southern gen.
tleman. He had not even seen him.
And 50 the true SOutherner fades
from human cOgnizance "unwept,
unhOnored and unsung." 1t is true
we still have gentlemen and ladies
in the South, but they are of a diff
ferent type. Their features have a
severer outline, Il higher type per-
haps, but not the same; and, as we
have attained the age when men
live in the past rather than the
future, we thank Mr.. WattersOn for
a happy Renaissance of the past a
vision of long, low planters houses,
surrounded by groves of magnOlias,
with porticoes Cor galleries, as they
called them) all round them, rock
ing chairs scattered everywhere, the
graceful and easy-gOing hostess,
and the genial and still easier-gOing
host, knowing no happiness but that
of having hosts of friends around
them, and putting them at their
ease, too; culture without pedantry
or ostentatiOn, courtesy without
formality. 1t is all gone, and only
few old galvanized rebels care even
to dream of it; and, Henry Waiter
son, we thank you for our dream.
But we must say a few words of
the lecturer himself. Wit, wisdom
and humOr were the staple of his
discourse, expressed in English of
wonderful purity and with a manner
characterized with the graceful
freedom and pleasant dignity Of the
Southern gentleman whom he SO
well described.
The audience was just what it
ought to be-very large and yet
very select. Every person capable
of approaching an intellectual treat
was there, many of them having
come i'm many miles from the coun-
try for the purpose. Pleasurable
anticipation was their cue as they
arrived and delighted realization as
they left.
ACCOMPANYING Col. COlyar on
his visit to GAINESVILLE last week
was Col. Claiborne, of Nashville.
Col. c. was making himself very
agreeable in our little village, and