Posted on 10/29/2019 6:04:04 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Thoreau calls and reports about the reading of his lecture on Brown at Boston and Worcester. Thoreau has good right to speak fully his mind concerning Brown, and has been the first to speak and celebrate the hero's courage and magnanimity. It is these which ho discerns and praises. The men have much in common, — the sturdy manliness, straightforwardness, and independence. It is well they met, and that Thoreau saw what he sets forth as none else can. Both are sons of Anak and dwellers in Nature, — Brown taking more to the human side, and driving straight at institutions, while Thoreau contents himself with railing at and letting them otherwise alone. He is the proper panegyrist of the virtues he owns himself so largely, and so comprehends in another.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 506
November 4. Just from opera, with Ellie and Mrs. Gregory Peters; Lucrezia Borgia, [with] Gazzaniga, Beaucardé, a new tenor, whom I like, though his voice has lost its freshness, and that fattest bull of Bashan, Amodio. I left the ladies in their box, in the second act, and went down to the footlights, where it was rather pleasant to watch Gazzaniga’s expressive face in the “Madre mia” terzetto. Rarely heard that very clever little bit of trumpery better done.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Hi Teach.
The writings and speeches of the era are most eloquent.
I have to be honest, I had to look up the word, “panegyrist.”
Learn something new every day.
5.56mm
Wow, Strong was a really serious opera lover.
I doubt Amos Alcott’s writing was typical for the era. His family rubbed elbows with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as Thoreau. His daughter, Louisa May Alcott was also an author of some note. Our pal George Strong might have dropped a “panegyrist” or two, but I don’t remember him doing it.
He was big on all the classic performing arts, but I think he may have been laying it on a little think in today's entry. "Rarely heard that very clever little bit of trumpery better done" suggests he hears it done on a more regular basis than would be likely for a New York attorney with many other responsibilities than attending the opera.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.