The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-09-20
springfield Republican,
The Wilde Vaparv.

The visit of young Irish adventurer to this
country has received very exceptional atten-
ton at every hand, during the present year.
The youth had published a volume of verse
neither more nor less trashy and nasty than
many other volumes of its sort which the au-
thors bad found friends to back financially
after which it is entirely easy to find publish
ers who Will manage 1t commercially. The
youth had also enjoyed the entree of that rout
called English society, in which a little nasti-
ness, more or less, is not considered-poets are
expected - be naughty, like the noble Byron
who in England to-day would be petted and
worried out of patience with favor instead of
driven alb .oad before a blast of virtuous wrath
as he was go years and more ago. The things
this volth has written are such as no man
would dare to read aloud in even these toler-
ant companies. There are great poets who
have written what cannot he subjected to that
test, but their ofenses are episodes-eddies in
the tumultuous tides of their genius. This
poetaster thrust his priapsms forward as the
very acme of his inspiration. Is it not a cnri-
Gus thing that persons of this sort, who write
IS If their one concern were the sexual passion
and as ii all that was beautiful and precious
and worthy were wrapped MP in it, should be
able TO mix with their kind with unabashed
cheeks?-nay, that women should meet them
without bushes, and talk with them without
embarrassment? An Oscar Wilde, in his
small way, ike q OWlQpurl6 or a N1llOn, really
exhales subtle, corrupt odor, which steals I'M
noticed amid the companies he frequents until
the whole social atmosphere is masmatc; yet
those who breathe it are SO infected that they
resent nothing so much as the hint that their
air is vile.
1t is in a really cultured portion of our socie-
ty that Wilde has met with such warm re-
ceptiol,-and we must try to think that An.
glophilsm has much to do with this tolerant
hospitality which has allowed the man to de-
ny repeatedly that he is enggad to certain
young lady of the most desirable family and
personal qualifications.
Another part of our society, the class of mon
eyed leisure, ready to catch up "a fashionable
within, prosessedly quite devoid of moral mo-
tive, has shown honor to this person. TEey
have "guyed" him good deal, but as he is on
commercial trip and sharp enough to play
his part in the guying, there has been little
enough reaped on their harvest. When Wilde
was at Saratoga he was the butt of half the
crowd and the idol of the other half. There
was an excursion to Mt. McGregor gotten up
expressly to make mock at him, but he
showed, as he had done to the Harvard stu
dents who filed into his lecture in knee
breaches, that he was quite their match in
fooling. ~ shall count everyone my disciple
who loves the lily" he said-and every one at
table drew poud-lily ostentatiously through
his or her butten-hole. If the rest of the fools
laughed, be sure be laughed as heartily as any
ef them He has taken the measure of our
plutocracy wilde IS no FOOL but he must
think American society is made up of fools.
How absurdly this passing fashion is made
to count for real influence is seen in the COM
mon remarks over display of sunfowers in
one of our New England gardens. The sun
flower has been the glory of our gardens for
two centuries; all the farmers have planted
them-if it were only to raise seeds for the
fowls is the idea of the man, the good wife
has cherished them also for their splendid
show, and every eye that has the sense of
beauty has admired them. And have we now
to learn from this trivial loafer around London
that the sunfower is something to admire?
Ana did Wilde discover the lily? Had no
lilies bloomed in America till this fellow,
stale from nocturnal interviews with statues,
observed them and called our barbarian atten-
tion to their loveliness? This Wilde business
makes one sick--let us hear no mora of it