Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1895-04-11
THE Ex-APoSTLE or EsTHETiciSM
AS he APPEARED TO US.

sued what was vaguely called Rstheti-
cism. The Bunthornes Of Patience
made up in exact imitation Of Wilde,
and he posed in the Hobbies of the same
theaters and composed phrases which
outdid il iiiylike languor the phrases
Gilbert had thought to be satires. One
of the n Of Patience which seems
to contain a more or less pointed al
fusion to Wilde run
Then a sentimental passion Of a vegetable
fashion
Should excite your laRgUid spleen;
An attachment, a Ia Plato, for a bashful young
potato,
Or O not too French French bean,
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will
rank as an apostle
In the sentimental band,
II you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or q
lily
In your medieval hand,
And every one will say
AS you walk your mystic way,
'If he's content with a vegetable love that
would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young
man this pure young man must be-"
The more limp Du Maurier drew his
caricature the limper was Oscar when
he confronted the next assemblage; the
longer Du Maurier made his peoples
hair the longer Wilde staid away from
the BARRIERS.
Up to that time, Is years ago, Wilde
had done little else to attract attention
to himself. He was known to be the son
of exceptionally clever parents and win
ner of the Newdigate at Oxford, but be-
sides cleverIy advertising himself and
writing a few verses be had done no
clever original work and was not seri-
ously considered. His reputation as
lecturer, man Of fashion, wit, poet, nov
elist, essayist, playwright, has been
made in most particulars in the last half
dozen years, all since his lecturing tour
in this country.
He came here about 10 years ago,
frankly advertised as a freak lecturing
on 'astheticism. He wore knee
breeches, silk hose, lace cuffs and was
otherwise v~ariously freakish in his
dress. At Boston a half hundred Har-
ward boys marched into his lecture hall
dressed as he was, each carrying a lily.
Wilde's noted imperturbability did not
utSt1b nllu. II uJDlbiy LlSDDLy 11OH
tenderly drolli" and went on with his
lecture.
In a western city he was the guest of
a club among whose members were a
number of stout drinkers. They under
took to tank up the aesthetic, " as they
expressed it. The process was long.
As the sun was breaking into the club
xrfnlnrpa WILL l1ZlnI about nrnr m
room strewn with falling braves and
said to the one man still able to COM
prehend speech:
We've had a oharmingly quiet lit
tie evening. Don't you feel like a bit of
a run about town before breakfast"
But those who met him under normal
conditions found Mr.. Wilde a witty,
engaging talker, unusually we'll inform
sd on a wide range of literary and art
subjects, and quite able to care for him
self in any mental encounter. The pub
lie at large, not knowing this Of him,
refused to accept him or his cult seri-
ously, and Wilde returned to England
richer only in experiences and a few
hundred pounds. He had apologists, not
of his class, for his "lilylike" eccen-
tricities.
About three years ago his play,
Lady Windermere's FAM" was pro-
duced in London and later here. and
that at once made him one Of the most
talked about playwrights living. There
was not much seriously Objectionable in
the sentiments expressed in this play,
not to theater goers who had become &C
customed to "Divorcon" and its kind,
and this did not seem to satisfy Mr..
Wilde. He wrote "Salome, wrote il
in French, and arranged with Sarah
Bernhardt to produce it in London, but
the lord chamberlain refused to author
ize its production, or, to put it the IA
miliar way, prohibited it, and Wilde
threatened to 60 to France to live,
which the Marquis of Queensberry ex-
pressed a longing for him to do. but he
did rot.
A year and a half ago Mr.. Wilde
managed to contrive and have ventilat-
ed in The Pail Mall Budget a quarrel
with r. F. O'Connor. in which he ex-
pressed his opinion of the Ordinary
JOuIhdliSt III u uldGDeT iDleuutu W III
crease the scope of the quarrel, but it
did not.
In spite of the harsh things which
have been written lately about the
moral quality of his later literary work.
q recent London critic wrote of him:
"Mr. Oscar Wilde has a very whole
some influence upon contemporary
thought, though there are people who
think otherwise. 1t is not that he is
original or even absurd. He is never
entirely either. But he sticks his pen
into the somewhat torpid consciousness
Of the average Englishman and digs up
the clods of truth which have caked and
hardened therein. He turns upside
down the proverbial wisdom which
most of us regard as eternal verify and
shows us that it looks as well one way
40 Sna pthar Naxy Vnriy Gun