Life — April 18, 1895 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

While there io Life there’s Hope” VOL. XXV. APRIL 18, 1895. No, 642. 1g West Tuirty-First Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year in advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year, extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed untess accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. OOD clothes are al- ways a delight, but = there is a special joyous radiance about the good clothes that bloom in the spring. Nature, which is busy getting out her summer cover- ings, is in sympathy with them. Religion itself seems to approve, or at least tocondone, them. Folks who have had the money to buy ster have done well to spend it for that purpose, and folks who have got credit are excusable, at least, if they have employed it to the same end. The old notion of an antagonism between piety and pretty gowns has very generally given way to a saner understanding of the natural relation between the beautiful and the good. Let us rejoice in the bravery of the Easter frocks and the gayety of the Easter bonnets. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness of the sleeves of the women thereof. Be glad in the green- ness of the grass, the softening of the breezes, but also in the triumphs of the milliners and the artificers of raiment. This is their week. Even the are largely their handiwork. Let us give them | praise, which cost us nothing, and settle with them later if we can. new clothes for E. Easter weddings ND while we are praising let us make our acknowledgments to our lively London con- temporary, the Marquis of Queensberry, for the ser- vice he has done to all sane people in obliterating Oscar Wilde. Wilde seems to have proceeded these many years on the theory that the idea of sin was based purely on public prejudice, and that one line of conduct was really as good as another if the person who pursued it only thought so. The acute discomfort which his reliance on this theory has at last entailed upon him would seem adapted to convince even him that there has been some flaw in his reasoning, and that for human creatures. living in a condition of social development there is really a considerable choice of behavior. ILDE is what is described in the vernacular as a “goner.” He has departed beyond the reach even of jeers and we shall hear no more of him. The consequences of the recent suit to him personally are not of great moment to the public, but that weak-minded persons both in England and elsewhere should be relieved of the influence of his corrupt theories and the contagion of his example is a very decided gain. Sport as represented by the Marquis of Queensberry has won a signal victory over astheticism, The kingpin of all the wsthetes languishes in jail, disgraced to a degree that makes it an offence to speak his name, while the sport- ing Marquis triumphs as a defender of public morals. Decency and common sense, fresh air and honorable be- havior get a little out of fashion from time to time, especially in great centres of wealth and luxtiry, but in the long run they have a hold on the liking of the Anglo-Saxon race which humbug finds it hard to overcome. . * . “TF the Salem clergyman who secured a fleeting notoriety by accusing the President of getting drunk could spend a few weeks in Washington he might learn to be cautious about placing confidence in casual stories to the personal habits of public men. Such stories always abound in Washington, and the multiplicity of them destroy their force. The Salem man has much to learn, but if he has any capacity for retaining information he will know more presently. very . proverbially cheap, but talk by telephone might be cheaper. We shall see presently whether the rumor of a new telephone company to compete with Bell's. is a case of cheap talk or cheaper telephones, . * * EOPLE on this side of the Atlantic will observe with interest the effect of the . current moral reaction in London on Mr. Aubrey Beardsley and the “Yellow For some to come morbid in- s, whether in art or in literature, are likely to be less lucrative in London than they have been for some years past. Mr. Beardsley has planned to come out to America this spring.