Sacramento daily record-union., 1882-01-21
w1LDEs Art GOSPEL.
THE srALwARr BRITISH EsrHETE TELLS
Us WHAT IT Is
Looking to Elizabethan America for Ful
Growth Of the English Renaissance
-wilde's Reception.

Recently, in New York city, D'Oyly
Carte, Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan's man.
ager, brought out Oscar Wilde, Messrs.
Gilbert and Sullivan's subject, at CHECKER
ing's Hall. Pecuniarily the first night of
Patience could not have been sur
| passed, if indeed it equalled the nights
entertainment. At o'clock no ticket,
even of admission, was to be obtained at
the box office, and the spectators outside
had only few more left at 50 apiece.
| At S o'clock the hall contained greater
| audience probably than it has ever held
before Parquet and gallery were packed
to the corners, and, contrary to the law.
| people were permitted to stand in the
| aisles. The gathering was pretty evenly
divided as to sex. Many were in evening
dress. One or two of the feminine Co.'S
tunes were such as Du Maurier has pic
tured. Several young men wore their hair
parted in the middle and flowers in the
| lappels of their white overcoats. For the
most part, however, the audience was
naturally barbered, ordinarily dressed, and,
in manner and appearance, commonplace
and everyday. Noticed in it were Judges
Brady and Barrett, David Dudley Field,
Archibald Forbes, Jennie June, Theodore
Moss, Mrs. Forteseue, Bishop Clarkson,
the Rev. Messrs Hepworth and Collyer,
Henry Bergh, Aunt Fanny Barrows, and
DR.. Macdonald, Superintendent of the City
| Insane Asylum at Wards Island.
| Until 500 the lights were kept low. and
the assemblage showed forth dinghy. The
insufficient illumination, together with the
4 1f H. - H.
| ing tedious, and provoked an English
gentleman with gray whiskers, who sat in
| the center of the parquet, to say, In voice
that was audible for several feet round
about, that this was "too-t too. The i'm
| patient expression, however, had hardly
| passed his lips when the crystal chandeliers
gave preliminary crackle and blazed forth
| with the light of MONDAY. The audience
stirred and smiled, and with much
rustic and buzz, adjusted itself. The stage
was still empty. Its sole furniture con-
| sisted of tall red screen, which stood as
background, two heavy carved chairs of
| fifteenth century design, frail and lofty
pulpit or reading desk, with firm and wide
spreading legs, and slender table close at
| hand, supporting a delicate ground-glass
tumbler, and crystal fagon filled with
white and limpid water.
At the side of this stage, at $40 or
thereabouts, door noiselessly opened and
man and vision appeared. The vision,
which was round-shouldered, glided half
way across the stage and sank into one of
the fifteenth century chairs. A noise
filed the house that was half applause
and half laughter. The man advanced to
the desk, pronounced few unheard words
of introduction, bowed, and quilted the
stage. The vision arose and stood behind
the desk, and Oscar Wilde and his first
New York audience made the acquaintance
of each other.
The poet was tall, but modified his hight
to a due measure by rounding his shoulders.
His hair, brown, waving, and fluffy, was
parted in the middle, and fell, like that in
the pictures of Charles IL, to his shoulders.
His face looked forth as between a set of
soft window curtains, white, beardless,
smiling, and mild. The features were
Irish, much toned down, prominent, but
not strong. The brow-the little triangu-
lar area to be seen of it, that is-was
wholly placid and unmarked, and the eye
brows were neat, delicate, ana arched, Of
the sort coveted by woman. He wore
swallow tailed coat of the ordinary pattern,
a white waistcoat, low cut and double but
toned, pair of black knee breeches, black
silk stockings. and low counter shoes. His
broad expanse of shirt front was punctured
in the exact center by diamond stud, and
fine handkerchief was thrust neglgently
in between it and his waistcoat. A ribbon
and seal dangled below the latter garment.
His collar turned down, not very wide and
not very low. and white silk tie was
evenly knotted beneath it. His upper and
lower parts, to sum up, were picturesque,
and his middle section mathematical and
commonplace.
The first greeting accorded to the poet as
he advanced to the slender pulpit and bent
leg which was quite as slender In order to
put foot upon the base of it. was an un-
mistakable and rude giggle. His face re-
tanned it's placid expression as he laid the
manuscript of his lecture upon the desk
and bowed. He began Immediately to read
and the giggling quickly suosded. Eyes
which had exchanged unmistakable opin-
ions with other eyes fixed themselves in
terestedly enough upon him, and the au.
dience assumed the appearance of an au-
dience in ordinary His delivery was a
monotone not once interrupted. His emls-
sions of humor even were delivered IN the
regular lntonation, and they gathered
piquancy doubtless from the fact. After
ten minutes, save when joke dropped in,
the cadence alone asserted itself, and Mr.. |
Wilde sounded like a schoolboy scanning |
Horatios first ode. He had mis- lecture |
pretty well committed, and he read with |
his head thrown back and his large eyes |
rowing softly back and forth between the |
galleries.
Two of his utterances which provoked |
mirth were these Satire is the homage |
which ignorance pays to genius" To |
disagree with three. fourths of all England (
on all points is one of the first elements of |
sanity" An idea of his manner of into |
nation may be conveyed in this sentence :
"KeatS-was a pUre-and superior !
artist.
It was not long after the beginning of
the lecture that the audience began to |
evince sympathy of WEAKNESS. Opera |
glasses were leveled toward all points, and |
people more and more showed an interest |
in one another. Gray.headed and bald |
men, though plainly they tried hard, could |
not avoid looking sheepish. A whispering |
rose in the back seats and crept gradually |
through the cen er auditorium. At the |
end of an hour men who We're alone took |
to fumblipg their facial features, and |
smiled vaguely. But the young poet kept |
on, his brow serene and his smile still with |
him, aud all he did for his own relief was
twice to elevate his right foot in place of
his left foot, and once to elevate his left |
foot in place of hisright foot. It was after
10 when his cadence ceased, and he bowed. |
The audience rose at once, and he bad !
passed Through the little door before they |
remembered to applaud him. They ap-
plauded then, and he came back and once
more bowed. Audience and poet then sep
arated for the night.
THE LECTURE.
Among the many debts which we owe
to the supreme esthetic faculty of Goethe
is that he was the first to teach us to define
beauty in terms the most concrete possible
to realize it, l mean, always in its special
So in the lecture which |
L Al, br,,a- -, IL ,-a,, 7