The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-02-26
UNMANLY MANHOOD

1 w ceSJ Oios OAO SAOA0J
appointed guardians Of the public
morals. Yet what elergymen il
preaching a funeral discourse over
an eminent or opulent parishioner
ever admits that he had vice?
Gone is almost led to ask" said Z
business man to me, the other day,
"whether the clergy have really the
same moral STANDARD with other
men ?"
But the moral of all this goes far
ther. Women are as distinctively
recognized as the guardians Of the
public morals. Yet when a young
man comes among us whose only
distinction is that he has written a
thin volume Of very mediocre verse
and that he makes himself some
thing very like a buffoon for notori-
ETY. and money, women Of high So
cial position receive him 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 NO.
man would remain in the room un-
til the end. In the vicious period
of the English Georges, Byron was
banished from society, Moore was
obliged to purify his poems, for less
offenses against common decency
than have been committed by Oscar
Wilde. There are pages in his po-
ems which, as witty critic says,
"carry nudity to a point where it
ceases to be a virtue" 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,b but Whit
mans OffenseS rest on a somewhat
different ground and need not here
be considered. MIR. Wilde may talk
of Greece; but there is nothing
Greek about his poems; his nudi-
ties do not suggest the sacred white
ness of an antique statue, bat rather
the fOrcible unwilling of some in
suited innocence. We have perhaps
rashly claimed that the influence of
women has purified English litcra
ture. When the poems of Wilde
and Whitman lie in ladies 'boudOirs,
l see no evidence of the improve
ment.
And their poetry is called"manly"
poetry Is it "manly' to fling before
the eyes of women page upon page
which no man would read aloud in
presence of women? But there is
another test OF manhood: it lies in
action. "I5 makes a great differ
9nce to a sentence" said the clear
sighted Emerson, whether there be
4 man behind it or no." Each Of
5hese sO-called manly poets has
had his opportunity of action and
waived it. l am one of many to
whom Whitman'S ''Drum-Taps"
nave always sounded as hollow as
he instruments they counterfeit,
simply because their author, with all
his fine physique and his freedom
or home-ties, never personally fol-
owed The drum, but only heard it
rom the comparatively remote dis
ance Of the hospital. There was a |
line when the recruiting officers
wanted men; their test was final, or |
1t least so far final that he who did
lot meet it,nO matter for what good
'eaSOns, had best cease boasting
bout his eminent manhood. So Of |
his young Irish poet, who speaks, l |
observe, OF JUS EngiishmeH." His |
mother, Lady Wilde, has written |
poems upon the wrongs of Ireland |
hat are strong and fervid enough,
ne would say,to enlist an army; es-
her poem on the Irish |
xodus, "a million a decade. There
$ now Ireland on the verge of civil |
var; her councils divided, her self
tyled leaders in jail; she needs
very wise head and brave heart she |
as ever produced, to contribute, &C
Ording to their best light, to some
Oluti0n of her hard problem. Is it
nanhOod for her gifted sons to stay
t home and help work out the prob |
EN-; or to cross the Atlantic and /
ose in ladies' boudoirs or write pru-
lent poems which their hostesseS
nust discreetly ignore? What |
would Sir Philip Sidney have
bought Of the new definitions of |
nanhOod he of whom it was writ
en-. This bright and accomplished
avalier might, if he pleased, in his
ay have set the fashion of a shoe
lie, or have altered the fashion OF |
ny mans peruque in the country;
ut he thought itmore becoming his
manhood and his greatness of soul,
0 hold out brave example of virtue |
nd religion" For one, I should |
Ike to hear, if the so-called English |
is good for anything,
lOTe Of the gospel of Sir Philip Sid
ey and less of the gospel according
o Oscar Wilde.-Coi. Z. W. Higqi1a-