And Then Came The Subject Of Slavery.

I had been told that Mr. Emerson was an abolitionist, and knew that I must disagree with him on that head, if on no other.

To me it has always seemed that to mix up the question of general abolition with this war must be the work of a man too ignorant to understand the real subject of the war, or too false to his country to regard it. Throughout the whole lecture I was waiting for Mr. Emerson's abolition doctrine, but no abolition doctrine came. The words abolition and compensation were mentioned, and then there was an end of the subject. If Mr. Emerson be an abolitionist, he expressed his views very mildly on that occasion. On the whole, the lecture was excellent, and that little advice about the peacock was in itself worth an hour's attention.

That practice of lecturing is "quite an institution" in the States. So it is in England, my readers will say. But in England it is done in a different way, with a different object, and with much less of result. With us, if I am not mistaken, lectures are mostly given gratuitously by the lecturer. They are got up here and there with some philanthropical object, and in the hope that an hour at the disposal of young men and women may be rescued from idleness. The subjects chosen are social, literary, philanthropic, romantic, geographical, scientific, religious - anything rather than political. The lecture-rooms are not usually filled to overflowing, and there is often a question whether the real good achieved is worth the trouble taken. The most popular lectures are given by big people, whose presence is likely to be attractive; and the whole thing, I fear we must confess, is not pre-eminently successful. In the Northern States of America the matter stands on a very different footing. Lectures there are more popular than either theaters or concerts. Enormous halls are built for them. Tickets for long courses are taken with avidity. Very large sums are paid to popular lecturers, so that the profession is lucrative - more so, I am given to understand, than is the cognate profession of literature. The whole thing is done in great style. Music is introduced. The lecturer stands on a large raised platform, on which sit around him the bald and hoary-headed and superlatively wise. Ladies come in large numbers, especially those who aspire to soar above the frivolities of the world. Politics is the subject most popular, and most general. The men and women of Boston could no more do without their lectures than those of Paris could without their theaters. It is the decorous diversion of the best ordered of her citizens. The fast young men go to clubs, and the fast young women to dances, as fast young men and women do in other places that are wicked; but lecturing is the favorite diversion of the steady-minded Bostonian. After all, I do not know that the result is very good.

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