The new star.
If to have an audience remain quiet, attentive, and sympathizing during the delivery of a long lecture, is any indication of the ability, tact, and success of the speaker, we think it may be claimed for
Miss Dickinson that she is a compeer worthy to be admitted as a particular star in the large and brilliant constellation of genius and talent now endeavoring to direct the country to the goal of negro emancipation.
Music Hall was filled to overflowing; hundreds of the audience went early, and must have sat there more than an hour before the lecture began; and, yet, we do not remember to have seen less signs of weariness and inattention at any lecture we ever attended in this city.
Her voice is clear and penetrating, without being harsh; her enunciation is very distinct, and at times somewhat rhythmic in its character, with enough of a peculiar accent to indicate that her home has not been in
Massachusetts.
Her whole appearance and manner are decidedly attractive, earnest, and expressive.
Her lecture was well-arranged, logical, and occasionally eloquent, persuasive, and pathetic.
She traced the demands and usurpations of the
Slave Power from the commencement of our government till the present time, and proved that, because it could not hope to control the country in the future as it had in the past, it raised the standard of rebellion,--an act long since determined upon when such an exigency should arise.
Slavery being thus proved to be the cause of the war, the justice, necessity, and propriety of its abolition, as a means of present defence and future security and peace, was forcibly illustrated.
That the slave was prepared for freedom was proved by the thousands who have passed through so much danger and suffering to obtain it. The inhuman character of the fugitive slave enactment was most beautifully referred to, bringing tears to many eyes which are not accustomed to weep over the wrongs of the colored race.
She spoke in eloquent terms of
Fremont, which met with a hearty response from the audience, as did other parts of her address.
On the whole, we think her friends here must be greatly delighted with her first effort, on her first visit to our old Commonwealth.
Previous to the delivery of the lecture, the “ Negro Boatman's Song,” by
Whittier, was sung by a quartette, accompanied by the organ, and the exercises were closed by singing “ America,” in which the audience joined.
She spent the following summer in reading and study, collecting materials for other lectures.
She continued, as she had time, to visit the government hospitals, and made herself a most welcome guest among our soldiers.
In her long conversations with them, she learned their individual histories, experiences, hardships, and sufferings; the motives that prompted them to go into the army; what they saw there, and what they thought of war in their hours of solitude, away from the excitement of the camp and the battle-field.
Thus
