The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1882-02-02
( TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM.
NO. 43
The Apostle Oscar

The Apostle Oscar.
ture. Oscar is an aesthetic What is an aesthetic?
An aesthetic is man or woman who believes
In the Beautiful; and the only problem, after
that statement has been made is to find out
what the beautiful is The word aesthetic comes
from an old Greek word meaning ''to feel" :;
hence, an aesthetic is sentlmentaist, who
passes his life in the ETHEREAL realm of feeling,
and descends to the practical plane of exis-
tence as seldom as the business demands upon
him Will permit. Strictly speakinga genuine
aesthetic of the first water should be relieved of
of the encumbrance of business entirely, anu
allowed, under the fostering protection OF
his country's laws, to live on the per-
fumes of lilies and let his notes in bank go
to the devil. The aesthetic has taken on
various shapes and forms Oscar is not the
first by any means who has written out pre-
scription fer the Beautiful in the interest OF
the human race. But he has the advantage OF
p lato the founder of the school, in that he is
not forever heunded by monstrosity like
Socrates, whose facial development was a sub
stantial and chilling parody on the system. In
himself, Oscar borders largely on the Beanti-
ful, with his flowing locks, massive and elo-
quently impressive features, silk stockings and.
knee breeches, and softly-delicate white hands
So far as physical equipment is concerned, al
ways great aid to personal crusade, Oscar
is endowed with some of the finest attributes
of anatomy and those who have seen him in
the great act declare that when he twines his
left leg which is poem in itself, around his
right leg, which is an acknowledged essay on
Beauty, and then places the upper half of his
body on a delicate obtuse angle to the lower
halt, he presents amodel which Phidias would
have been proud to engage at almost any sal
airy asked.
Now there are only two things to be con
sidered in connection with Brother Wilde.
The first is his theory, and second, his motive,
The theory is slightly nebulous and intangible;
but if correctly understood, it embodes the
idea that the world has grown into the habit
of thinking with Wordsworth's Vulgarian
that
"A primrose by the rivers brim,
yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
This was calculated to 6eaden all the finer
sensibities of our nature. Not that prim-
individual capacity, but that the everlasting
laws of beauty require US to see in the prim
rose reflection of the mystery that connects
plants and flowers with purity sweetness, God.
According to this doctrine we are called upon
to see
Books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
All nature, art, even the sordid products OF
invention, must be raised into the ether of
feeling before we can dare to think we have
derived the benefits of their existence. Viewed
in this light, the commonest concerns of liv
ing Will be suddenly transformed into minis
tering angels OF the beautiful, spreading their
perfumed wings over our heads from sunrise
to sunset, and yielding a compound interest of
sulcease from the base, practical slavery of
common sense. Not to prolong illustrations,
it will do to say that when professional as-
thete lifts up the coal scuttle to help the fire
along he has only to let his mind dwell IN
wrapt fancy on the sunbeams imprisoned in
the black diamonds and he will at once forget
that coal has gone up a dollar ton, or even
that his last coal bill is unpaid Now if Pm
wrong, | hope to be corrected but that s about
the English of it; and it's piggish and fop
pish Infringement of the laws of actual fact.
Oscar should remember that a man of sent-
ment or woman Of sentiment will always be
such, even under circumstances the most adj
verse. Training may sharpen their wits and
fancy-it may, perhaps, open up vstas of feel
ing and poetry not imagined before-but the
hope of making sentimentalists out of seven
tenths of the human race under any possible
incentive, is vain as the hepe of max ing a
silk purse out of sow's ear. These bowling
and plaintive females of the Wilde school may
plaster themselves from cellar to garnet with
roses and lilies and daffydowndillies, and roll
their eyes in mock-poetc estasy, and worship
before old crockery ware till their hair turns
gray, but they will eventually discover that
you can't embroider souls on an overskirt or
dig blank verse out of an Eastlake gate. Then
the craze will die.
But what are Oscars motives? Ostensibly
to lift the world out of its mud bath and teach
it to recline bed of roses; but really to
made all the money he can out of that same
deluded world. And he will make more, mark
it, than any Englshman, except Dickens, who
has ever visited this country in the lecture
field. 81 hear his mother is rich" said friend
of mine to one of Oscars friends, "surely he
don't have to do this business for Il living?'
Mother rich:" was the response, do you
suppose fellows with rich mothers go about
the world collecting gate money!" No, Oscar
is purely business. He has managed the news
paper dodge with consummate skill, and under
stands its value as well as merchant That's
the practical side Of atheticism. His knee
buckle and lily dodge is another creditable in
yention. We have had manas of various grades
coming before the public in costume-the
Laplander and Greenlander in their ftlrs, tell
ing of the land of the aurora borealis and Civ
ing object lessons in Attic life the Chinaman
and the Japanese, and the missionary from
Africa's sunny fountains and midas coral
strand-all bewtching the audience at fifty
cents a head with the manners and raiment
of the natives | don't know how much of a.
success it might be if we could only get Eve
to lecture in her tig-eaf and diamond brooch,
but all these daring efforts at panoramic dis
play have signally failed, till Oscar, with
penetration that proves his practical genius,
adopted the knee breeches as his coat arms,
and screamed to paralyzed world, In hoe
agno eincesn' Poetry Judging merely on it's
own merits. would have placed him on the
vulgar level of Tennyson and Longellow, and
the gate money would have been small-well
it would have been on par with his poetical
fame. But combination of poetry and knee
breeches not even the most stony could resist
Hence Oscars keen perception of the art of
grouping.
Well, we must let Oscar have his turn at the
crank. He will give heap of common-sense
in his lecture just to show that he's only
theoretical fraud and then dash in a few sun
flowers and old crockery to preserve his repu-
tation from criticism. But whether he takes
hundreds or thousands or millions away from
our shores, let there be a stop to the insane cry
about the gullibity of America. The impress
sion has been created by ourselves that Amer
lea is the Paradise of inspired cranks; that we
would rather throw money away on fraud
than make it in some sensible investment
This is a ie Compared with England in this
respect we are conservative. England is par
ercellence the Paradise of financial and aesthetic
crankS John Rl1ll with all hic ranuta+;o, {,r