Morning journal and courier., 1882-02-02
Oscar Wilde.

Flights-The Big Sunhower.
 Oscar Wilde, the poet and apostle of es- thetics, lectured ;last evening at Peck's Grand Opera House to an audience of four or five hundred. It included not few dis | tinguished citizens, most of whom were ac- companied by ladies. The lecturer arrived l at the hall few minutes before o'clock. 1 Outside there were thirty or forty persons waiting to catch glimpse of the lecturer. | They were probably much disappointed at finding him attired in ordinary dress like any other gentleman-no knee brooches, nothing but plain black suit The lecturer was accompanied solely by his agent, MT. Vail, and his colored waiting man. While MT. Wilde was adjusting his toilet with an aesthetic, languid, composed air before the glass in the dressing room, MT. Vail spoke | with enthusiasm of Mir. Wilde's Boston sue. cess the evening before-a S3, 900 house. MT.
 Wilde having adjusted his long and flowing locks, which were parted duly in the middle and fell about his neck and collar, he was in. terviewed by representative of the CoUR- TER. He bowed with the air of an Apollo and
 our reporter took mental cognizance of the | six feet of aesthetic humanity before him, finding him very much like the photographs displayed in Peck's window yesterday, minus the fur lined overcoat. He was dressed in 8 conventional dress suit, the pantaloons cut l without special attempt at shadowy legs,
 black vest cut low, displaying vast expanse of highly polished shirt bosom, in the exact center of which reposed single stud com posed of pair of beautiful pearls. His col lar was low turn over, his tie white, flow ing silk tie or handkerchief. A pair of mas. sive watch seals dangled from 8 fob chain. The following conversation ensued
 Reporter-How were you pleased with Boston,? Oh, very much, very much indeed, said MT. Wilde, his face assuming happy, genial smile. I expected to be. Boston has indeed great deal of culture art and refine ment.
 Did you visit the prominent people and places? Oh yes, and my experience was very delightful. l think it was one of my pleas. antest stopping places. I was honored with an interview with Longfellow and others ot note there. had charming time after my lecture at party at Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's. | I also took run over to Harvard College and visited that institution. Harvard re- I minded me much of our English universities, i-of our own Oxford I liked Boston SC we'll that shall return there before my de- parture for my home.
 How long do you remain in America /? Oh, said MT. Wilde, with a heavenly expression rolling his eyes slightly upward, that de- pends somewhat. have no fixed plan as yet.
 Do you remain in New Haven to morrow :: Yes, shall remain awhile. Professor Whit ney, whom have had the pleasure of meet ing, has kindly consented to show me Yale 1 University, in which I shall take great pleas ure. I afterward go to Hartford, where ] lecture in the evening"
 Your poetry I see finds many American readers, and thenewspapers have given many samples to their readers. Are any of your
 works published under your own direction in America? An, they read my poems but through piracy. It is pity that the autho, Is not protected in his work, as to it's repro duction in this country. Yes, it is pleasant, again, it is pleasant to be read, to have your thoughts read, to touch humanity in that | way.
 May ask do you confine yourself strictly to your manuscript in featuring?
 Ohs no. I often diverge. If the spirit of the audience moves me aright give expres sion to new thoughts that occur to me. The inspiration of the moment gives me new cur rents of thought.
 Youdo not dress tonight in your regalia Oh, no; that is matter in which I allow myself to be guided by circumstances and the weather. Knee brooches are little cool for this evening. Dress should be sesthetic, moi conventional. Beautiful colors should be considered in dress. would allow hberality l the beautiful Whatever is beautiful is g pleasure. So the beautiful should improve and grace the mind and add to the higher l forms of feeling and life.
 Just here the audience began to stamp wig orously. What is that noise said Mir. Wilde with dreamy, far away expression. That replied the reporter, is your audience, who are impatient for your appearance l Impatient, said Mir. Wilde, dreamily. The re porter, with 8 goodnight withdrew, Mr l Wilde retiring to converse with his agent after which he placed his manuscript unde' the gaslight and read over page or two after which he stepped out upon the platform and calmly arranging his manuscript waited for the burst of applause which greeted him to, ,subside, when he began the lecture. A few moments before much laughing had oc cured. The students, of whom it was ex pected that some demonstrations would be made, confined themselves to parading gor- geous sunfower about three feet in diameter i (the displaying of which was unceremonious, ly suppressed by the special constable), and I to stamping at every sentence that bordered | on the aesthetic. They succeeded in marring the pleasure of those who were intent upon hearing the lecture. His delivery was, how 1 ever, so monotonous as to become tedious, and we noticed good many ladies idgetting about and seeking to beguile themselves with taking an inventory of the hall. Samples of the style and thought of the lecture are as l follows '.-
 Among the many doubts which we owe to the supreme sesthetic faculty of Goethe is 1 that which he was the first to teach us, to de I fine beauty in terms the most concrete possi- ble, to realize it. mean always in its special l manif estations. So, in the lecture which l 1 have the honor to deliver before you, I will l not try to give you any abstract definition of | beauty, any such universal formula as was sought for by the philosophy of the eigh- l teenth century still less to communicate to l you that which in it's essence is incommuni- cable, the virtue by which particular pie 1 ture or poem affects us with g. unique or special joy; but rather to point out to you ! the general ideas which characterize the great l English renaissance of art in this century. He explained that to every nation there is | born a certain amount of artistic power, which may be used, mocked, strewn upon I the desert, but which can never be used for 1 anything else but art that nine-tenths of { the British people think the word aesthetic is the French for affectation, or the German for 8 dado that to know nothing about their great men is one of the necessary clements of English education that in 1847 the admirers of Keats, possessing youth, power and enthu- ] siasm, which the English public never for gives, fell into the habit of discussing art, called themselves "Pre- -RaphaeIites, and de- termined to revolutionize poetry and paint ing, and went on at length to point out the operation of the artistic spirit in the choice of subject l "Whatever spiritual message an artist brings to his age, it is for us to do naught but accept his teaching. You have most of you seen probably that great masterpiece of Ru- bens which hangs in the gallery of Brussels that swift and wonderful pageant of horse and rider, arrested in it's most exquisite and fiery moment when the winds are caught in crimson~45anner and the air is lit by the gleam of armor and the flash of plume. We'll, that is joy in art, though that golden hillside be trodden by the wounded feet of Christ and it is for the death of the Son of Man that that gorgeous cavalcade is passing. | In it's primary aspect painting has no more