Henry Lawrence Southwick

              1907

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Henry Lawrence Southwick
Lectures
and
Shakespearian Recitals
Management
DICKSON LYCEUM BUREAU
PITTSBURG   CINCINNATI



IN the Summer of 1906 Henry Lawrence Southwick, of Boston, appeared on the programs of eight of the leading Chautauquas of Ohio.  All of the managers who engaged him for 1906, desire his return for the next year.  No higher tribute than this can be paid to any man on the platform, for Chautauqua audiences are of all audiences the most difficult to please.

When it is remembered that Dean Southwick's work is strictly classical in character, never for a moment descending to the commonplace, while Chautauqua audiences are never composed wholly or even largely of those who appreciate the classics, the wonder is the greater.  From all the assemblies comes the same report: Dean Southwick in his Julius Caesar and in Richard III was the great event of the program.

S. Parkes Cadman of Brooklyn, following Dean Southwick on the Celina Chautauqua program, said from the platform: Dean Southwick's interpretations of the great Tragedies are the greatest I have ever heard at any Chautauqua, and you are to be congratulated on the opportunity of hearing so great an artist.

Dean Southwick stands easily at the head of all interpreters of dramatic literature.  We have heard all the great artists now before the public, and it is no injustice to any other to say that Dean Southwick outranks them all.  Other great artists have the dramatic intensity, but lack the scholarly insight; others have the scholarly insight but lack something of the dramatic feeling, or perhaps the voice or presence to body forth that which they see in the great masterpiece.  Dean Southwick lacks no gift or grace that might add to his superb success in dramatic interpretation of the great tradgedies.

What other man could hold a fickle Chautauqua audience surfeited by three full programs a day, and interest them and thrill them and make them see Caesar slain and Antony conquering the mob—certainly no other in America in our day at least has approached Dean Southwick in this marvelous power.  We were not surprised that the cultured people appreciated to the full the wonderful genius of Dean Southwick, but we were not at all prepared to see the unread multitude captured and held spellbound by an interpretation of a classic!

We have heard these tragedies read again and again, we have seen them played by the masters of to-day, supported by strong casts and aided by accessories of scenery and stage setting, and yet never were we held spellbound by the terrible reality of the thing as Dean Southwick held us.

It is not strange then that Dean Southwick should have been chosen as the head of the greatest school of oratory in the world, nor that calls for his recitals come each year from Maine to California.

The above extract from an editorial in the Chautauqua Idea Magazine is perhaps as apt as anything we can say in introducing Henry Lawrence Southwick to our committees for the second year.

We have booked him on our largest courses, and never ONCE without a request for a return date.

The great demand for his recitals makes it certain that we will be forced to increase his price materially in the near future, and for this reason we urge our committees to hear him before his fee becomes prohibitive for the average course.



Subjects
Lectures

I
A Splendid Rebel; or, Life and Times of Patrick Henry
II
Hamlet, the Man of Will
III
The Orators and Oratory of Shakespeare



Interpretative Recitals

I
The Cardinal-King An interpretation of Bulwer-Lytton's Romantic Drama, Richelieu
II
Richard III, A Tragedy of Ambition
III
Othello
IV
Julius Caesar
V
Twelfth Night
VI
The Rivals—Sheridan
VII
A Yankee Story teller Selections from the Fireside Stories of Harriet Beecher Stowe
VIII
An Evening of Miscellaneous Readings Recitals from Sheridan, Murray, Shelley, Lanier, Edwards and Dickens

In addition to these lectures and recitals, courses of lectures upon Oratory, the True and the False Methods of Teaching Reading in the Public Schools, and addresses upon other educational subjects are prepared for teachers' institutes and school organizations.




LETTERS
MRS. MARY A. LIVERMORE

Mr. Southwick held me spellbound.

HON. JOHN W. DICKINSON

Henry L. Southwick justly bears the reputation of being one of the most accomplished Shakespearian scholars and teachers of the present time.

Ex-Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

OTIS SKINNER

Last night was an evening of great delight to your audience, and I offer hearty congratulations.

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A. M.

The Richelieu might have been better done, but I cannot conceive it.  It stirred and moved me more than I know how to express.  I came away as from a most impressive religious service where you had been the eloquent preacher.

A. E. WINSHIP

There was strength and high intellectual vigor as well as great versatility and delicacy of discrimination in Mr. Southwick's work.

Editor New England Journal of Education.

JAMES L. HUGHES

I have had a wide experience, and have heard most of the lecturers and entertainers who have been prominently before the public during the last thirty-five years, and I have never listened to a more attractive lecturer than Mr. Southwick.

Superintendent of Public Instruction, Toronto, Ontario.

HON. J. Q. A. BRACKETT

Please accept my sincere thanks and hearty congratulation.

Ex-Governor of Massachusetts.

DR. EMERSON E. WHITE, COLUMBUS, OHIO

It is difficult to say whether the lecturer excelled in the force, elegance and beauty of his own thoughts or in the recital of parts of the great drama which he was analyzing.  He showed the master in both directions.  He held the rapt attention of the audience from the opening to the close, and the evening was a delight to all present.

SHERMAN WILLIAMS

During the twelve years I have been here we have never had a lecture that gave better satisfaction and only one that equaled it.  I consider it by far the best thing of the kind that I have ever heard.  I have heard many expressions of delight and not one criticism.

Director National Summer School of Methods.

EDWIN D. MEAD

Henry Lawrence Southwick was the first Old South prize essayist in 1881, writing one of the most thoughtful essays that have been written since the prizes were instituted.  He had been invited to a place in the Old South course of lectures, and the lecture which he delivered on Patrick Henry was recognized as one of the best in a course in which such men as John Fiske, John D. Long, and Edward Everett Hale had part.  He had something to say, and he said it with clearness, with directness, with grace, and with power, holding the closest attention of an audience that is critical and hard to hold.

Editor of the New England Magazine.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS

It is unusual to find so much historical ability united with such pronounced oratorical powers as Mr. Southwick has exhibited.

Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.

HON. JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES

You can have no greater admirer.

ROBERT C. METCALF

I can truly say that I never before enjoyed Shakespeare so well.  I congratulate you on your grand success.

Supervisor of Boston Public Schools.

J. T. TROWBRIDGE

The character of the Cardinal was sustained with a unity of effort which only a strong conception can insure, and it left on my mind an impression of individuality, which is the test.




THE PRESS

Glasgow (Scotland) Citizen
Mr. Southwick had the needed note of sympathy.


Boston (Mass.) Transcript
An artistic triumph.


Boston (Mass.) Times
Mr. Southwick is a thorough Shakesperian scholar and a superb elocutionist.  * * * Lights and shades always harmonize.  He has no tricks of delivery, and reads his lines with such delicacy of finish, such suggestiveness and acute sympathy, that even to those who know their Shakespeare well his interpretations come with a forceful, light-giving power.


Hartford (Conn.) Times
A program second to none of the kind ever given in the city.


Ft. Wayne (Ia.) Sentinel
Professor Southwick held his hearers steadily under the spell of his matchless genius.  He is more than a dramatic reader.  In his work glows the deeper, steadier light of the artist with the loftiest conception of life's best culture.


Toronto (Ont.) Mall
Fine literary discernment and rare eloquence of expression.


Boston (Mass.) Courier
Professor Southwick is a man of delicate, true, and sure intellectual perception, a scholar as well as a student, a judicious expositor, a sound reasoner, and an inspiring teacher.  * * * He has a convincing earnestness, a telling directness, and a kindly humanity.


Manchester (N. H.) Mirror
Those present enjoyed one of the best lectures that have been heard in the city.


Richmond (Va.) Dispatch
A master in the art of expression and oratory.


North Abington (Mass.) Journal
It was a great lecture, not to be spoken of in ordinary terms.


Baltimore (Md.) Sun
Of marked simplicity, yet full of power.


Los Angeles (Cal.) Times
A scholarly production—a message to University's young men and women of the highest value.


San Diego (Cal.) Union
Immensely pleasing.


Boston (Mass.) Herald
He succeeded admirably in suggesting the grim humor of the Cardinal; and the famous declamatory passages and brilliant theatrical outbursts for which the play is noted were skilfully handled and won enthusiastic plaudits.


Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle
Mr. Southwick is a speaker of marked literary talent as well as of dramatic powers far above the average witnessed on the stage.  The excellent impression made on his first appearance before the Brooklyn Institute the day previous was heightened by his reading of Richelieu.  The climaxes in the closing acts of the play were taken with a fire and dash that made the nerves tingle.


Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution
A more powerful and more beautifully expressed discourse on any subject has not been heard here in many a day.  Professor Southwick is justly considered the most powerful exponent of Shakespearian philosophy and expression in the country, and his lectures on the great creations of the greatest dramatist the world has ever known are gems of oratory.


Minneapolis (Minn.) Journal
As a Shakespearian reader Mr. Southwick is without a peer.


Salem (Mass.) News
The lecture on The Oratory of Shakespeare was a gem of eloquence, and added new laurels to the brilliancy of Professor Southwick as one of the most powerful orators upon the American platform.  He held his audience spellbound.  So vividly did he present the living characters that one could well imagine himself before the footlights.  None but an artist and master could do this.


Glen Falls (N. Y.) Times
Professor Southwick lacks none of the essential qualities of lecturer or reader, as viewed from the highest standard.  He graces the stage with a presence extremely pleasing; his gestures are of perfect naturalness and ease, while his voice is of wonderful power and sweetness, and his handsome, mobile face denotes the varying moods of his eloquence.  He is an artist always, whether he recites an amusing skit to create a ripple of merriment or rises to the height of eloquence in the interpretation of Shakespeare.

BROWN & WHITAKER


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PRINTERS
HAMILTON OHIO