COLLAPSE OF THE APOSTLE OF ESTHETICISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6817, 22 September 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

COLLAPSE OF THE APOSTLE OF ESTHETICISM.

A more pathetic instance of collapao cannot be presented than the i.-iat stage in the eventful history of Oscar Wilde. He has fed ou tho husks of a tiausitory fame, and lived to see tho very herd of pationtanimals to whose folly he has administered deeert him. Oacar, deui-'d the thistle of consolation by his longeared brethren grazing at tho waysids of society, is of all falls the most complete and disastrous. To be the temporary j<st in London drawicg-rooms, the butt of American lecture ha'.!s, and a failure in Bohemian Paris were as nothing compared to the un- ) p'easantntss of lecturing to empty benches I during the height of the ecason. In Oscar's days the masculine and feminine | undergraduates came the epicene youth, who first began to talk artjaryon, to worship blue chins, and adore the wall pap rs of Mr. William Morr:s. Of this cult Oscar was admitted as the head. Educated at one of the loveliest colleges in Oxford, he pref rred ralical a;3thet!cism to tory rituali-m, and once elected high prios-t, ho allowed his lo.ksto grow, and tucked them behind his oars. With the applause bestowed on ringing in his ears, he complacently waited :;or something to turn up, aud in the meantime called upon all to observe that a new light had risen in the horizon. His succes in London society was not at first very niarUed. He condescended to tea parties in Kensington and Bays water, aud hunted up the Irish brigade that had attended the Wilde receptions iu t'-ie old Dub;iu days. But an Irishman of a certain type possesses a very amiable a;t of insinuation, particularly if he has a striking individuality rod can tilk fluently. Every Jouusou niu-'.b La>'e ;i Boswell, and tho Irish Use ir being an agrneblc compmion, soun found a dozen Boswclls ready to do for him wha". the photographers do for professional beauties. They got him talked about. Wlu'u people, week after we.!;, kept hearing what Oscar Wilde did and said, they became anxious to know who Osc ir Wilde was. Such iu our days is the manufacture of notoriety! His assurance was amusing. lN r o one at him more than he laughed at himself. It was his Irish persistency, and his unrufilod good nature and calm indifference to the ameers of his own sex thntrnadc Oscar for the moment the jja'er and joke of a certain section of society. Jf he was snubbed ho did not see it; if he was laughed at he did not heed it. There w.is no guile in ths man, and but little method iu his madness, for though ou lap-dog terms with mauy women, he was never connected with any sc.iud.il nor can it be said that he was a bu'iter of heiresses. Tint such a bc-pufifcd and advertised gentlemen should make a lit.le money iu America out of his notoriety w*s seU-evid'iit. Baniiini would have made a>) good a thing out of Oaunr .is of Jumbo. People wanted to see the man, not to hear him talk, and the apostle of sweetness and was well advi:ed to pa-ade his knee breeches and sea-green uecUtiee, for no one n-ouid have paid 1 is mjn»y lia-1 lie lectured iu tiie ordinary attire of an Euglisn gentleman. Hud there been more solidity iu Oscar than there is, he would probably have worked the American market better than he I did ; for as a show he was not a ' big boom.' I F>>rgott n in England and played out in America, tho impressible high priest of •' Too-too," who had lived so long ou a New- ' debate prize uoeni and a volume of third-rato i ve?se, tried P..ris as a last resource. There he attracted no more attention than would an English clown without his inotK'y aud unacqu.»iuted with thu language ; so that he cut his hair, aud returned home with shorn looks aail a manu-cript It is this uufortunate lecture that sea : ec. the doom of O-.oar Wilde. Sad was the position of society's qu'm ; am pet haranguing a remnant of his old admirers ia a hull half full iu the height of the London season! Never ou record has there been so disastrous a fusco. Where were the duchesses and C':uutes:-es of long ago? Whcre'jthe merry, merry main en who had hung on the eloquence of Oscar's tongue? Where the prof seioual beauties before who-n he had b.iaked ? Not one was eqinl to the purchase of a stall. He had beaten hi 3 big drum ; he was ready to tell all that London contained of wit aud beauty aud nobility h->w he despised the Atlantic, how lit-.le he thought of Niagara and how he had b;eu too refiued to leeuire in a place with so inartistic a name as Wit and beauty and uobility entirely declined to bo bidden the feast of unreason, and, lo ! before him was a sparse gathering ot mere suburban vulgarians. We ;ry of platitudes, old jokes aud schoolgirl cirs ; sick of the painful spectacle of a clever gentleman deluded into mistaking a forgotton butterfly notoriety for permaiieiit fame, and fancying that twice in the term of a lifutimc a gro'.vn up in in can emerge i from the herd by the cut of his trousers or f the colour of his packet handkerchief, the atteuuatod audience grow re3tle j s and fidsety. Tbe lectur-r liimsuU supplied tho suggestion for what fallowed. (Saving retailed his experiences he explained th.v. when American audiences do no , : care for a play or pl-.yer they do not hiss, but simply v.'alk out of the room. That wai quite enough for Oscar's audience. They required no further hint, but did ditto. Th<; joke is played out; the bubble of prismatic hues blown from a clay pipe has burst. Exit Oscar!"