Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-02-08

that he makes himself something
very like bufoon for notoriety and
money, women of high social posi-
ton receive them at their houses and
invite guests to meet him; in spite
of the fact that if they were to read
aloud to the company, his poem OF
" Charmides, not a woman would rev.
main in the room until the end. In
the vicious period of the English
Georges, Byron was banished from
society Moore was obliged to
purify his poems, for less offences
against common decency than have
been committed by Oscar Wilde.
There are pages in his poems which,
as witty critic says, "carry nudity
to a point where it ceases to be viz
tue" In all else Mr.. Wilde initiates
Keats, but in Keats there is nothing
in the least like these passages they
can indeed be paralleled in Whitman,
but Whitman's offences rest on
somewhat different ground and need
not here be considered. Mr.. Wilde
may talk of Greece, but there is
nothing Greek about his poems his
nudities do not suggest the sacred
Wilderness of an antique statue, but
rather the forcible unwilling of some
insulted innocence. We have per-
haps rashly claimed that the infu-
ence of women has purified English
literature. When the poems of
Wilde and Whitman lie in ladies
boudoirs, l see no evidence of the
Improvement.
And their poetry is called "manly"
poetry! Is it manly to fling before
the eyes of woman page upon page
which no man would read aloud in
the presence of women? But there
is another test Of manhood: It lies
in action. cit makes great differ
ence to a sentence" said the clear
sighted Emerson, whether there be
a man behind it or no. Each of
these so-called "manly" poets has
had his opportunity of action and
waived it 1 am one of many to whom
Whitman's "Drum>Taps" have ais
ways sounded as hollow as the in
strument they counterfeit, simply
because their author, with all his fine
physique and his freedom from
home ties, never personally followed
the drum, but only heard it from
the comparatively remote distance
of the hospital. There was a time
when the recruiting officers
wanted men; theis test was final, or
at least so far final that he who did
not meet it, no matter for what good
reasons, had best cease boasting
about his eminent manhood, So of
this young Irish poet, who speaks, I
observe, of GUS Englishmen. His
mother, Lady Wilde, has written
poems upon the wrongs of Ireland
that are strong and fervid enough,
one would say, to enlist an army !;
especially her poem on the Irish ex
odus, ga million decade ~ There
is now Ireland on the verge of civil
war; her councils divided, her self
styled leaders in jail; she needs
every wise head and brave heart she
has ever produced, to contribute,
according to their best light, to
some solution of her hard
problem. Is it manhood for her
gifted sons to stay at home and help
work out the problem or to cross
the Atlantic and pose in ladies'
boudoirs or write prurient poems
which their hostesses must discreetly
ignore7 What would Sir Philip
Sidney have thought of these new
definitions of manhood; he of whom
it was written: "This bright and
accomplished cavalier might, if he
pleased, have set the fashion of a
shoe-tie, or have altered the fashion
of any mans peruque in the country !;
but he thought it more becoming his
manhood and his greatness of soul
to hold out brave example of virtue
and religion p For one, I should
ike to hear, if the so-called
English Renaissance is good for
anything, more of the gospel of Sir
Philip Sidney and less of the gospel
according to Oscar Wilde.