Mr Gerald Massey.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 91, 21 March 1885, Page 2

Mr Gerald Massey.

Of this popular lecturer, who is shortly to visit Palmerston, the .Melbourne Argus of September 27, thus writes ;— T^is gentleman ,cpmine,nc.es. a proynicial toiir next week', arid thefe is rio^ reason to doubt that his admirable lectures will be delivered to appreciative and sympathetic audiences m .the ' princial ■'. towns an'd'we ; s : 6ftne'interior/ ;r^ii' ; -Wvibwing the series which 'hehas delivered m this city, the first thing that strikes one is that he selects no subject which he has not made himself . thoroughly master, ; and towafru's' which he is not dr awn by the force of a warm and even ardent sympathy. He, s,eems. to. place himself; m the centre of it, ahd'to shßw the whole , of it, dealing with it as completely as he i would do if he were writing a '9ook about) it. He does not impose any arbitrary! limits upon himself m his methods of* treatment, but lets himself loose it, ' and seems at times: to be carried. a Way] by it- Aniin this waybe is enabled ( tot do, the fullest justice to themes of a widely < different character. Whatever may bej the matter m hand, he " goes for it," «n-: deavours to get '^t the radical reality of it, and to .''j)luck the heart out of its, mystteTy."' 1.-m a word, he is. fchbrougn ;; ■and' whether he is dealing -^vith national; life and character m its richest manifestation arid at one 1 of. its most fruitful periods, as m the lecture on Shakespeare or with art, as m that $n Pre-Raffaelle-j tism ; or' Vith : such rjemarkabl^ persona-' l^ties. as those of Burns, Lamb, and Hoodjor'as those iof the Sea Kings, -to ! whbmtand to the strain of Scandinavian blood m our veins we are indebted for our maritime supremacy, Mr; Massey's, thoroughness is always cohspicuous^ And although .he is cosmopoh'tan iri ' tboughti he is intensely 1 English in' feel r ' ins; arid' some;of the' descriptions of'the Bcetiery of the mother;. country cwhiqh she introduces into his lectures produce the same effect upon, thpsa hearers who have :been lpng absent, from her as ( the 1 souhd, <of . thj? Rank ties y aches is said to cld.u'pbn 1 Swiss exiles ril ( a tar distant : cbuhtry.' While. he lippes m some* far-off time-thaff the principle of human brotherhood will be sufficiently powerful) to bring; about that " Parliament of: men, .the fe4er^on, ( of the world," which Was, perhaps" orie v j. of, the early dreams of the laureate, Mr Massey does riot lose sisfh't of the much nearer, much more attainable object of Austrahari federation m the first instance, and of imperial federation hereafter. ;