The Portland daily press., 1894-10-23
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

School English. manual for use in
connection with tine written English
work OF secondary schools, by George P.
Butler, formerly. English Master in the
Lawrenceyille (N.J.,) school, is simple
rhetoric. 1t deals with words, figures
OF speech, clearness, force and harmony.
with composition in it's various DEPART
ments, and closes with a talk on the
English language and a reproduction for
memoriziag, ETC., of Goldsmith's Desert
ed Village. Other short extracts for
reading and criticism are also intro
duced earlier in the volume. The book
as modern text book serves it's purpose
well AID will be needed, as between ele-
mentary language lessons and the ad-
vanced studies of English. american
Book Company, $50 and sos Broadway.
New York. Price rs cents)
The Green Carnation is publis he'd
anonymously. 1t is lively satire upon
the ways and manners of the SUPER
aesthetic society set. Country house
England, the church, matrimony. ,au-
thors, actors, artists and musicians-all
come in for as dazzling mirror of their
piety. sins, faults and foibles as will be
met with in many a day. A fresh
hearted young widow and healthy. and
undoubtedly vivacious small boy serve
as foils in this atmosphere of "impure
purity" and "virtuous vice. Mr..
Amarinth, Lord Reggie, Madame valtesi
and Mrs. Windsor in truly decad ent
fashion turn all the old moral teaching
the other side up, and proceed to reverse
former codes with a modern CELEBRITY
which only fin-de-siecle characters could
achieve. my dear Emily green car
nations never bloom on walls at all. Or
course they are dyed. That is why they
are original. Mr.. Amarinth says Nature
will soon begin to initiate them, as she
always initiates. everything, being
naturally uninventive. However, she
has not started this summe r yet.n aThat
is lazy of her."
And again: "Oh! France" "Then he
must have a bad pronunciation. A
natives pronunciation of his language
is invariably incorrect. That is why the
average Partisan is totally unintelligible
to the intelligent foreigner. All foreign
ers are intelligent. All. here are our
devilled kidneys. I suppose you and I
are devilled, Reggie. People say we are
SO wicked. l wish one could feel wick
ed; but is only good people who can
manage to do that. 1t is the one pre-
negative of virtue that really envy.
The saint always feels like sinner, and
the poor sinner, try as he will, can only
feel like a saint. The stars are SO nm
just. These kidneys are delicious. They
are as poetic as one of Turner's later
sunsets, or as the curving mouth of La
Gioconda. How Walter Pater would
love them" And so on!
There seems to exist notion that the
book is by the same author as The Yell
low Aster, but the inference must have
been drawn because the title "cometh
up as flower" There is no connection
between the two books, save the sugges-
ton of take-oH in name. A New York
paper says:
There is every reason to believe the
author of A Green Caraation is no other
than Oscar Wilde. He has satirized him.
self In this wickedest of wicked books
in the person of Esme. Amarinth, but
that goes for nothing with Oscar, who
loves the abnormal, and hesitates only
at what is true and natural. The book
is masterpiece in it's horrible way, but
the reader. while smiling at it's perver-
slty. Will be glad to wash out his mouth
after swallowing these pages of cynical
wit and topsy-turveyd dom. All London
is reading A Green Carnation. and
those who read between the lines are
deepy shocked at it's immortality. The
rest OF the world simply views it as a
daring parody on certain absurd novels
of the day, and say, how clever! or how
stupid as their friends get hit. A less
innocent defiance OF the proprieties could
not be imagined but it is feared it takes
a sinner to know how far Oscar Wilde
has gone in this anonymous picture of
the new vera. Everybody of note in
London, save the characters themselves,
who talk in the book is boldly called by
name, and unblushingly satirized. The
only safety in putting A Green Carna-