St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-20
TALK.

|
Boston have not been very fattering sue
cess this year. Only the melancholy mean
sum OF S112 is shown after expenses for the
lecturer, and an appeal is issued to the ben
evolent admirers of Flavius Josephus to
strain the tribute to $500 The Monday lee
tureship in the modern Athens whose intel
lectual prowess was scarcely second to the
| talks of Socrates in Academic saunterings,
has weakened when its pecuniary sop is only
S112. IT'S time to stop when the proceeds
are so meagre.
Western people know better than to en-
courage lectures of certain sort, no matter
how cheap they may be offered.
| Lectures fourished about twenty-five years
ago. They were the enjoyment of the null
titude, and in town or village no winters
entertainment was so eagerly and thought
fully projected as ''coursen of lectures. 1t
had ''course'' like madness and other dis
eases you will observe. On the allotted
evenings people went solemnly to hear Hen
~ Giles, Z. H. Chaplin, Fl. w. Bellows, The
odore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Starr
King, and all the rest of the celebrities avail
able to lyceums and lecture committees.
Then twenty-five dollars a night was con-
sidered excellent pay for an hour and a halfs
discourse, and fifty dollars was counted as an
extravaganza only warranted by securing
some famous person not to be had for the
ordinary terms. There is record of the mild
and generous Horace Greeley once declining
to lecture in Hartford, Conn, for ten dollars,
saying with the humility of his greatness
that the people could not care much to hear
him at such price, and that he would rather
wait until the indication was more favorable
| towards him. And yet $500 and more have
been paid to lecturers of the fimsiest preten-
tons, whole lifetime of whose utterances
hadn't touch of Horace Greeley's greatness
of mind and heart.
1t has been related that the late Thomas
darcy McGee, when Minister of Immigra-
ton in Canada, seriously contemplated en-.
| couragng the establishment of skating Kinks
by system of protective bounties, contend
ing with much force that skating rink was
an invaluable agent in promoting matrimo-
ny. He never would have put forth such a
claim for the lecture system of years ago,
devised for the winters diversion and edif-
cation of old and young.
| Everybody attended, and the intellectual
banquet from first to last was kind of pic
ME of opinions and subjects.
| There was then no very offending de-
parture from respected traditions; no dis
couraging dissent from old beliefs social or
political. No distracting doctrine of Evolu-
ton had set the brains of men spinning, and
refined and scientific infdelity of the Hux-
ley, Darwin, Tyndal, and Matthew Arnold
! elaboration, was scarcely dreamt of in that
day in America. Once in while we heard
the stirring anti-slavery sentiments of Wen
dell Phillips in his Toussaint l. Overture
lecture, but the periods were so harmonious
thatwe hardly gave them credit for revolu-
tionary force.
1t seems strange now, to read as I did
yesterday in Boston Courier yellow with age,
of lecture of Theodore Parker in fremont
Temple, which is editorially dismissed as
one of his usual wild distorted efforts predict
strife and carnage. Parker in his Floren-
tine grave, is a prophet unforgotton in the
sad verify of his words, and the heroic real
ization Of reunited patriotism.
But the old-time interest in lectures is
thing of the past, and cannot be revived ex-
cept in galvanized stimulation. All the re-
ceptive conditions have changed. The
worlds pace has quickened beyond any be-
lief of that period. Only few names can
now be assured of good audiences, and
these are not manuscript-reading persons,
but those gifted with the power of holding
their hearers in the spell of eye, expression
and gesture, which carry the speakers utter
ances home as sunlight prints the pho
tograph.
Even with the extraordinary attractions of
sweetness and light, compounded with the
memory OF a scholarly and eminent father,
Matthew Arnold following his written subject
line for line in monotonous undertone, did
not realize third of his pecuniary expecta-
tons in coming to the United States. More
over dollar admission fee was an exhorbi-
tant mistake, even if lectures were popular,
for it kept away no inconsiderable numb Der of
Mr.. Arnold's best intellectual support every
where he spoke.
The crowd paid dollar a head to see Os-
car Wilde, not to hear his lecture-he had
but one-but to take in the show Notwith-
standing his airy @stheticism, and his appa-
rent absorption in the Beautiful with a big
B, this remarkable young man had what New
Englanders term faculty. and he realized
handsomely on it. His picturesque clothes,
his laces, and his exaggerated Alterations
were what filled his houses, and his purse
One look at him was more satisfying than
whole libretto of Gilbert and Sulliyan's mu-
steal extravaganza
In the almost ayerted face of interest in
lectures, it is safe to say that predestined
lecturer in these times needs an audience in
be anything of a success, and if he fails to
securing one, the supposition is, that either he
is badly managed, or in spite of all the ia
vorable symptoms he has mistaken his vo-
cation.
Joseph Cook has been proclaimed greatly be-
yond his capacity for satisfying anticipation
Besides he has grown unwieldy to his admir-
ing constituency, and he hasn't originality
enough to sustain interest in his utterances
at its early, fresh and vivid run-At first
he showed some CLEANS of gold which augur-
ed a rich yield. Now he is good deal like
the Emma mine.
His diminished prestige has made him care
ess, almost reckless about the conventional
check upon ill-temper commonly expected
from the orthodox Christian, and always I'M
derstood in the gentleman. He feels that
peace and rest are the prerogatiyes of his ex-
hausting mission, and he will not be de-
spoiled of ten minutes repose by the prema-
ture intrusion of fellow-laborer in the vine
yard, anxious for the ponderous Boston
1hnd hn, 10 -lofo IL L