Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-06-14
OSCAR WILDE
As a Lecturer on Decorative Art Tells
His Hearers Nothing New, and
zereIy Furnishes Up
Old Things in a New Dress-He is a
Mild-Mannered Young Man in
Small CIOthes.''

To the Editors of the Appeal:
Never having laid any claim to the posses
sion of that rare Jewel called Consistency, u
/ availed myself of the feminine prerogative
to change my mind, and went to hear Oscar
Wilde, after having expatiated very freely
upon the foolish extravaganza Of paying a
dollar to hear this young sprig of aristocracy
tell how good it is to be good, and how pretty
prettiness IL. l came away deeply impressed
with the soundness of my first view of the
subject.
Mr.. Wilde, a mild hammered, refned-look-
ing young man, dressed in the style of the
fine old English gentlemen who were given
to email clothes" and lace ruffies, spoke for
a halt hour or more on a subject upon which
there hiss been a general awakening for some
years OK, in a voice painfully monotoneus
and with slight tendency to a whine.
What he said on the subject of decorative
art was well enough said, and couched, no
doubt, III good English, but it has all been
said 20 often before, and 20 very much better
by Edgar A. Poe in his PHILOSOPHY of
Furnitnre;" by Leigh Hunt in his tenderly
suggestive sketches The Seer" and by Rus
kin in his eleyating essays on all subjects,
that one could not feel any great enthusiasm
over Mr.. Wilde's gently spoken platitudes.
When he tells us in his plaintive monotone
that eve of England would have you OF
America
MAKE ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL IN YOUR
HOMES"
and that call things made by man are either
beautiful or ugly" we feel that we have
been patronized and informed in one brief
second.
Though we are Just coneeited enough to
think that, young as We are in our art-life,
England cannot afford TO pat us on the back
and tell us she has hopes OF us yet, l ven
ture to assert that the Cincinnati school of
design will compare favorsbly with the far
famed Remington. We are younglyet, fault
which we are mending every day, and per-
haps will live 10 be old enough not TO feel
honored in too abject degree by the notice
of every adyenturer from over the sea.
Perhaps adventureE is too harah word;
for Mr.. Wilde is, in one sense of the word,
genuine. He is genuinely refined, genuinely
graceful, genuinely in love with the beautiful;
impressing one, in short, as having been
Tapped so softly that the beautiful is all he
has seen Of life has been refined at the ex-
pense, | opine, of those more rugged virtues
which we crude Americans are inclined to
think almost sine qua mons 10 manliness. But
my notion of q lecturer is OF one who has
new truths to advance, and who, speaking as
one having authority, hurls them at you
with such verbal force as TO impress you with
their own intrinsic weightiness and the apos-
tolic feI vor of their expounder.
Mr.. Wilde does not stir one pulse OF his
listener into quicker motion. In fact, one
finds time, in the midst of his lecture, TO Won
der if that delicately dainty touch TO an OBJ
trusive lock of hair, over his left ear, has
been acquired by careful and continuous
practice, or is spontaneous and involun-
tary outcome of estheticism, and one is ma
licious enough to think that, if he never
uses
HIS CAMBRIA HANDKERCHIEF
with more of vigor, he has untold sgonies to
anticipate in Southern summer tour, and
that he is sacrificing utility to beauty in
nsirously uncomfortable way. If Mr.
Wilde, the opposite of Edhetcism," as
every one is so fond OF calling him, were
really possessed OF the old apostolic indif-
ference TO purse or scrip, We would listen
with more respect TO his lament that so much
of our silver is converted into chose stoopid-
looking dollars" which be grants, however,
care well enough in their way" and as it is
his sway" to demand one of those 'stoopid
looking dollars" for every word he utters
almost, one is forced to the conclusion that,
after all he really thinks tolerably well of that
ugly, clumsy American coin. l do not mean
to underrate the beautiful or the advocates
Of the beautiful in any one sense of the
term, but il does morlify ones salf-love and
respect for his neighbors TO have the veriest
SuuuCldlcu WIN INC cOiCllhAty VI
revelation. l would not give much for the
hopes OF the household that is solely depen-
dent upon its beautifying to suggestions from
the lecturers platform. 1t is no injustice to
a large portion of the audience to say that
they simply wanted to see Oscar Wilde, as
hey would any other natural curiosity that
might be caught an tronsitu for their benefit.
they would certainly have come
at sn earlier hour, and not have
LEsSENED THE CHANCES
IF others to receive instruction by perpet-
Ial creaking of shoes and adjusting Of chairs
lntil within ten or five minutes of the close.
am quite sure that the young man who sat
IN front of me, conversing in semi-audible
ones with his young lady, must have had
much wittier things to say than did Oscar,
Else they would not have found it so impos- !
Iible to restrain their ill-timed laughter.
There are certain rights of audiences that |
ire cruelty infringed upon by just such in |
lividuas. For INSTANCE, lady docs not |
,are to be compelled to sit bolt upright i'll |
Ter chair, because her next-door neighbor,
IN entire stranger to her, has coolly appro-
,riated the back of her chair for an arm
est; nor has mortal vision ever yet attained |
degree of excellence which will enable |
{ to observe a lecturer through the opaque
olds of huge feathered fan. To such |
leighbors in public places / always feel an
irresistible inclination to say vehementIy:
Get thee ehind me SatanD