The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-04-20
"ART FOR ARTS SAKE"
Its Baneful Rsults Are Most Impressive.
ly Illustrated by the Downfall Of It's
Chief ApoStlc.


From the Philadelphia Press.
The fall of Oscar Wilde has put before
the sight of all men the end, fate and
fruit of "art for arts sake" When
right is shut out of the aims and acts of
men, men rot. There is no way to dodge
this. 1t is as sure as fate. All the
world shows 1t, but part of the world
now and then seeks some bypath on
the plea that "art for arts sake" gives
field in which beauty takes the place
Of right, and men are to be judged not
as good men or bad men, but as Ear
lists" and the "artistic instinct" is used
for veil and excuse for all that offends
morals or outrages propriety. Wilde
for twenty years has led in the i'll path
held, near or far from his steps, by
those who seek art for arts sake
save that he drove the phrase to its
foul full end, went to the end of his
rope, found a moose there and hung
himself. Through all his life, from his
youth up, in his verse, In his speech, his
books and his plays, he has stood for
the creed that as long as beauty were
sought and the word and work were
fair it was of no hurt nor harm that it
was foul. He has held and said by deed
and word that the gift of life is in the
hands of each man to eat the sweet and
drink the new wine of lust in all forms
in which it is poured, and that no man
ought to fear in this life the words of
men or in the next the wrath of heaven
so his days were sweet and soft and full
of the longing of the eye and the will
Of the flesh in all loose ways which men
have trod to their own undoing.
The DEVILS Gospel.
This was the faith by which he
worked and lived and this devils gospel
he preached. He had the gift of verse.
He had the skill that can weave plays
and feck them with phrases that shine
and words that sting and leave at last
the taste of death. He knew the ways
that win the babble of the mob-false
kin to fame-babble which has made
more than one man stray and fools the
wise. He got all the cheap gaud and
gain of life. over the beast in man in
all shapes he threw the guise of love
for what Is fair and swore truth and
faith to 'art for arts sake" and held
by no other rule.
When good men and women cried
aloud and spared not at this foul wish
for all that was foul, set in the claim
that naught was good or i'll save as
thinking made it so, they We're told that
art had it's due, a poet claim to for
bearance and art" law for it's own
acts against which none ought to put
forth the mere plea of what was right.
4 T,,l, Y a
Howe, 1882, of Oscar Wilde. "the poison
found in the ancient classics Is seen to
linger too deeply in his veins, l should
not prescribe for his case the coarse
jeering. and Incorporate scolding so
easily administered through the public
prints, but a cordial and kindly inter-
course with that which is soundest
sweetest and purest in our own socie-
ty.'
These words read strange to-day, now
that "the poison found in the ancient
classics has done its full work. They
were said in 1882 when a sound, whole
some and honest man, Thomas Went
worth Higginson protested that Oscar
Wilde, known then to hold to the creed
just laid bare, ought not to be left to set
foot in pure home or an honest house.
There were many then and there have
been since who held with Mrs. Howe
that the wise way was to bear with a
view of life, wrong 1t might be but still
"art." "The England OF this day."
urged Mrs. Howe, citing Lord Byron,
"did not treat its brilliant, reckless son
as q mother should"
The Pace of the Swine.
Oscar Wilde has not been so treated
lie has had free course and been glori-
fled, and he has used it, as did other
swine. to run down steep place into
the sea. But his fate is of small weight
or worth by the side of the sad fact that
he stands for a class and does not hold
his creed alone. No such man does
The foul deed for which he falls is his
alone, but it came in due course from
the creed he held, and this is shared by
men and women, aghast at his deeds,
who with him, hold in "art for arts
sake" His guilt Is not theirs. His
creed is. His scheme and plan of life,
which sought the sweet ease of self and
set aside right and wrong as things for
which there is no place in 'art," Is held
by many. They are in art schools.
They write. They paint. They thrill
to all that Is fair and forget that all
things fair are foul and lead to the pit
of death If they be not built on right.
There is no field from which right and
wrong can be shut out on the plea that
f"art'' has a world of ITS own, in which
the claw OF beauty" bears rule alone,
andwhen this claim is made and pushed