Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-04-01
WlLDE'S HOME.
HOW THE APOSTLE OF THE BEAUTIFUL
LIVES IN LONDON.
An Atmasphsr Of Artistic Idsals-AmsricaGs Always
Wslcoms-Hb Pretty Young Wifs-A
Type Of Irish ~Beauty-Lady
Wilde the Mother.
lCopYriHhted. 1851

which attaches to display, dimensions ant
magnifcance. Once inside, You breathe al
atmosphere of artistic ideals. The house
hold appointments harmonic with The
gospel he breaches. Perfect taste temper:
effects in hue and design, which are shot
through and through with his innate
love of 6izarrerie. Each chamber
is a fragment of the inmates,
and not merely the result Of a costly
upholsterer's inspiration. Everything in
the aesthetics establishment is CONNIE ii faut,
without o~stenstation and extravaganza.
Dinners are never too large or too long; the
dishes are the best Of their kind; guests are
Discriminatory selected. Perfect simplicity
is combined with delicacy and merit. The
dining-room, in which these young people
reciprocate the compliments oftheir hosts in
London society Isl study in pure white dec
grafton. The furniture, drapery snd cup
boards are dazzling in their immaculate
ness. aud rars and uniqued designs of French
taieace embellish walls similarly guiltless
of color. A dainty apartment BETTING the
h~ospitable festivities of the standard bearer
of q cause that demands rose-leat-strew n
floors, lamp-lights glimmering through the
c~revices of palm fronts, and pearly-skinned
women in Greek y~esture, canoes caressing
their shoulders and Jewels pendent from the
girdle.
As q host Oscar Wilde is agreeable, cor
dial, and sumptuous in his ideas Of hospi-
tality. At his hands and upon his hearth
Americans find a gracious welcome; he
twits the ladies upon their national pecu.
liarities, and tells a smart story for every
service of soup, fish, or entree. While he
declares the culture of our great republic
to be in petticoats, he playfully rebels
against the twenty exactions which,
he asserts, replace the Decalogne in
the American woman's code of ethics.
He affects the society Of our fair bar.
barians from the Western world for lively
epigram, and at such times of vivacious
banter he is conspicuous for the absence Of
those affections, conceits, and vsuities
which strangers suppose constitute the
complete stOck-in-trade of this high priest
Of e,theticism. AS he appears most ra-
dent in intercourse with women, he also
furnishes the crucial instance Of the SER
vice feminine assistance may render in the
establishment of professional reputation
and success of young authors in London.
To the general public Oscar Wilde is a
greatly misunderstood young man. He
has had some difficulty in inducing people
to take him seriously. To fully realizs
that he is something more than a droll
herald of his own mental gyrations, be
needs to be first met and then read.
Mr.. Wilde is no longer the apostle of
knee-breeches, lace wrist-talls, and flow
ing ~tresses, which received many an
impatient toss in former days AS
| first saw him under the Madras
drapery of a dividing arch in a Sonth Ken
sineton drawing-rooD, the evangelist Of the
suuflower doctrine who has been 30 widely
identified with the movement that
espouses the theory Of PERCEPTION
by the senses, and who has been so de-
plorably misrepresented, presented the fig
ure of an exceedingly practical and com
monplace person. AS he comes before
us to-day, curtailed of his fantastic fri!la
and foibles, lac scarcely tul6lls the
idealizing fancy of young maldenhcod
that still retains sight of the Evolutionary
nimbus Of ardent word-painters. lie Is
u~ndenisbly q vivid specimen OF John Bull,
a we'll knit, brawny giant of six foot, with
a heavy physiognomy and hsshly proper
tons, giving evidence of an easy sensual
ism and over-iudulgence of the animal ten
denotes for comfort. But during the years
since he was first rendered familiar tO an
American public, which have given
roundness to the creature, have
given also point to the scin'
citations of wit which constantly IL
lumiIe his conversation. He is never hab-
tied with extreme care, but he is ever sleek
and silken-maunsred, aud his voice flows
on in velvet cadence. He is Greek sch0l.
ar, and a master of that graceful English
rymthm that indicates a facile familiarity
with the academic discipline Of O complete
university education. His habits are stu.
dent.like, and his co~meradeships selected
from among the ilk of arts.
But his attempt, afOretime, 10 mingle
Barnumism with the gospel OF G'theticism
aud a boudoir religion, the primary object
OF whose worship was Oscar Wilde himself,
has left q grotesque and trivial impression
on the public mind.
Few Englishmen are 30 widely known.
His fame is spread throughout America.
And despite the gentle truth that he is now
engaged editing London periodical whose
harmless columns are innocently devoted
to pabulum concurring with feminine
digestion and receipts for making infants
caps, he is reckoned among the ierdti of
the town.
He is more popular, however, by neces-
sity' of the personal eccentricitics he prac-
tised in TIE days of pristine celebrity than
by the intellectual abilities to which he
can justly lay claim. Nature intended
Oscar Wilde for a drawing room voluptu-
airy, but a curious twist in his tempera-
ment, and a yearning for notoriety, trans
formed him into a sort of Piceadilly st.
Augustin.
The most conspicuous features Of the
Wilde camp are the Wilde women, as may
readily he seen.
The pretty girl who is the wife OF the
Apostle of the Beautiful is an accentuated
type of Irish beauty. Wide blue eyes, soft
brown hair, brows and lashes of a darker
tone, and withal a face characterized by a
Rdiuete that is in perfect harmony with the
youthfulneSs and simplicity of attire wbich
she duly essays. Her gowns are never
moisstly ostentatious, neither do their
modelling emphasizes the aesthetic genre.
She displays taste in inexpensive
fabrics and neutral tiuts of color.
She is the incarnation OF guile
less sentiment-to appearances all artless-
ness. The position she was elected to fill
as the wife Of the evangelist was a most
difficult one, and any but a remarkably
clever woman must have perpetrated, un-
der such circumstances, a host Of bluuders.
She has been disparaged as not much more
than a picturesque lay figure in this ami
mated family, but her very conservatism is
q safeguard against such inaptitudes as
would surely bs recorded TO her deprecia-
ton. If.,she has not shown aggressive iu-
~dividuslity, she has proved herself gifted