Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1882-05-11
RilI Arm ON Oscar Wilde.

Bill Arp on Oscar Wilde.
Every little while there's new
humbug comes to the front. / don't
care anything about Oscar Wilde, but
it frets me to see folks up yonder
running after him, and I'm afraid he
will come down Sonth, and our folks
will be doing the same thing. They
say he is poet and they say that es-
thetics is high up sorter thing that
carries a man above the frost line and
makes him astherial and heavenly,
and gives him new ideas of what is
beautiful and lovely. / like poetry
purity well--that is some kind of poe
try that deals in facts-like "Mary
had little lamb" and Life is real,
life is earnest" and the song of the
shirt, and the village blacksmith, and
the hermit and all such, for they are
according to nature and come home
to man; but | haven't got up TO.
Swinburn and Tennyson and such
highfalutin poets, and don't think /
ever will. It's strain on me TO reach
'em and I've quit trying. Many
years ago stopped, and entrenched
in Kathleen Mavourneen, and the
meeting of the waters, and coming
through the rye, and such like, and
if Oscar has got anything better
don't want to hear it. We've got
aesthetics enough at our house. The
children are purity and sweet, and
love me when get home, ald they
have got their little play-houses at the
roots of the trees, and the broken
china and the moss is laid round SO
nice, and the little chickens look so
clean and happy, and the young
lambs are frisking about in the mead
ow, and the water gushes out so mer-
rily from the spring, and old Rose
has just given birth to such a nice
new calf, that don't want any high
er aesthetics just now. / don't care
anything special about the Greeks
and the Romans, nor their heroes and
temples, for they have all busted
long time ago, and to my opinion
anything that busts is sort Of hum
bug. Farmers don't bust, nor rails
ing children, and chickens, and I'm
for coming down to facts and hard
tpan.
Them fellers in the olden time got
aesthetic and tried to build a tower
to climb up to heaven, and the Al
mighty got mad with 'em and Oscar
Wilde will come to the same end.
We have got to work for living, l
tell you, and We have got to work
down here in the mud and dirt, and
the women have got TO suffer and
bear children Just like they did 5000
years ago, and there is no dodging
this sort of business, and when man
comes along to talk about things in a
higher plane, and pretending he can
make angels of us and fit us for heav-
en- before we get there, set him
. down as fraud and a fool, and he
will be found as such in due time.
Mr.. Fewcloihes came home very
, drunk about three O'Clock on the
morning of the first of March, which
was the fiftieth anniversary of his
wife's birthday. Mrs. F., whose hab-
it was TO observe these occasions with
considerable soicmnity, had lain
awake almost the entire night, won-
dering in what way her husband would
remember the event.
" At daybreak she awoke him from
q the heavy stupor in which he was lay
e ing to remark:
d "Deary, don't you know what day
this is!'
Mr.. Fewclothes had vague idea
II that something out Of the usual run
G of things was on hand, but his befud-
died faculties refused TO accord hin
,e any distinct perception of the charac-
:, ter of the occasion.
" Accordingly, he would have turned
l. over. and gone TO sleep again, had
" not his wife caught his left ear he.
is tween her thumb and forefinger. and
70 wrenching it earnestly, repeated hel
question, whereapon he bliRised Al
Is her, and murnured, in dutiful sor
ne Of way:
rs ''Mer' Chr.znas, tiarl'nl"