Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1882-02-22
Our &sthetic Visitor.

l. =
glish poet, who is popularly believed to
be the the original of Du Maurier's
Postlethwaite,' and is recognized In
London as the leader oil the aesthetic
movement, arrived in New York city
few weeks ago. The following
sketch of Mr. Wilde was prepared by
an ardant '@sthete,' whose enthusiasm
has perhaps led him to somewhat over
estimate the greatness of his revered
leader.
The master is among us, and al
though the worshippers Of the Beauti.
full will hasten to lay their lilies at his
grand and earnest feet, there be those
who know him not. To them it may
be told that the Master is the SON
speaking after the manner of workings
-of Sir William Wilde, q well-known
Irish oculist, and of Lady Wilde, that
sweet soft thistle of poesy, in whose
verses, signed 'Speranza,' are found
the promise aud potency of the poetry
OF her marvellous son. He is about
twenty -eight years old, and grsdu-
ated from Msgdalen College, Oxford,
in 1873, when he won the Ncwdigate
Prize for English verse, and he has
since devoted himself of the cause Of
which he is the revered leader. He is
tall, with broad shoulders, and yet
with lily-like grace of from. His
face is oval, with q chin of imperial
splendor and an earnestly precious
hose. His hair flows over bis should
ers, and, like the glorious dawn, he is
beardless. Clothed with white lily,
and few other less utterly divine
garments, he is Beauty and Soul and
Horticulture and Silent Music mingled
together.
1t is as the incarnation of aesthetic
ism and the avatar of the unutterable
that the Master is chiefly known in this
county. Americans have gained some
little knowledge of him from studying
the solemn and beautifcl ceremonies Uf
Patience, mystery which the pro-
fame vainly regard as trivial and
amusing farce, and in which the Mas
ter is held up to our admiration under
the guise of Bunthorne. Estheticlsm
has been rashly defined as the search
for the Beautiful, but those who have
studied the words of the Master, as
written in his volume of poems, know
that this is but half the truth. The
esthete reveres Beauty, but he also
reveres all that is unthinkable and in
tensely Uniformed. He perceives the
supernal beauty of ugliness, the near
ness of the infinitely remote, and he is,
as one of the minor aesthetic poets has
exquisitely sung,
CAS- pure ss the perfume of parting,
And subtle and sanity as sin"
The Master has labored but in vain
if he has not taught these great and
bluish-yellow truths. He has shown
us how blessed and compact are the
hollowness and worthlessness of life.
He has led US with his beckoning lily
into the enchanted land where all is
beauty, and where by comparison even
gas and CATERS would seem prosaic and
earthly He is come as the missionary
of the aesthetic to the benighted mill
ions of America to whom lily is moth
ing but lily, and who have never
dreamed that it is music and religion
and ancient and modern languages and
the use of the globes and perforated
chest-protector. To doubt his success
would be to doubt the sanity both of
the Master and of his disciples.
While be is here the Master will not
onlv lecture-as the earth1vminded
would doubtless characterize his price.
less utterances-but will produce on
the stage tragedy which he has writ
ten. We who may live to see not only
the beginning. but the second or even
the third act of that tragedy. will have
known joys sadder than any surprise
party, and more cooling and soothing
than purgatOrial fames.-Harper's
Weekly.