The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-10-25
ALECrUkE ON SOCIETY
Illuminated and Palpi:ating With Henry Wat,
rerson's Corruscant Genius
CBy the Associated Press

Pittsburg, Pa, Oct. 23.-Henry Waiter
son delivered his lecture on Society"
this evening in Carnegie Music Hall, Al
legheny, before a small but enthusiastic
audience. The unusually cold weather
that prevailed during the evening was
responsible for the light attendance Mr.
Watterson said:
If only one has come here this even
ing under the impression that he, or she,
would be RECALLED by any pretended reve-
lations, by any startling dissertations and
celebrating diatribes, touching that Gu
rious exhalation of polite society known
as the Smart Set-sometimes calling itself
the Swagger Set am afraid that / shall
disappoint his, or her, expectations. Any
how, and in the beginning, l must fore
stall that misimpression. ! have no story
to tell, no mystery to reveal. Assuredly
am not a crusader either as to manners
or morals.
Something over a year ago a most
amentabe tragedy, taking for its mise
en- scene the very vestibule of the temple
of fashion-the sanctum sanctorum OF the
Four Hundred-led me in the line of my
duty as a writer for the press to say some
exceeding plain, and 1t may have been
thought some very harsh things, about the
nouveaux riches-the idle rich, the God
forgetting, world-defing, pleasure seeking
rich-who set themselves as a law unto
themselves, who submit to no restraints
except those fixed by nature and the
surgeons knife, who have no intellectual
perspective except that the longest purse
brings down the biggest titles, nor rule
of conduct except that, lmpelllng them 30
eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow
it may be some one else's turn: code
which l am told became altogether the
rage in Babylon some centuries ago.
"Sursum corde, lift up your hearts!
1 at least have never wasted many
thoughts, or nursed any serious fear,
about such cattle, nor shall do so until
monkey dinners become as popular in
Pennsylvania as they seem to be in Rhode
Island l know that IN each of our
centers of population and wealth there
is little coterie of silly women ard
simpering Johnnies, which would initiate
the imitators; but they are too shallow
and too scattered to make much head
way against society and by society
mean not merely those who, by their
character, their genius and their good
fortune, have earned the right to dwell
in great houses, without the suspicion OF
the oatentatious display of wealth-to
have picture galleries and libraries and
horses and carriages, and, if they please,
yachts and automobiles-bu behind them
that great army of the well-bred and
well-to-do-that noble American COM
monalty, clean of birth and clear of grit
those cultivated men and women. WHO
live without scandal and travel without
adyenture-not rich indeed but quite able
TO pay as they go-the rose and expect
ancy of true manhood and womanhood,
the very buttress and beethoven of our
free republic.
These constitute what ] call society.
Radiating from the home-thrice blessed
in dad ad mann and granny" yea,
in bill and Joe, Sis and Cots influ-
ence. penetrates the dark and the light,
reaching from the fireside to the counting
room, from the counting room to the
asylum and the hospital, and somehow.
finding it's way back again to the roof
tree and the hearth-stone via the school
house and the house of God; never
thought of the divorce court-not so
much as the shadow of "a noble lord"
to disturb its serenity, or to brighten its
dreamsI May that society be forever
true in it's politics to the lesson of the
greatest good to the greatest number;
in its religion, to Christ and Him Cru
Gifted"