I LIKE this sentence, from a report in the Dorset County Chronicle and Somersetshire Gazette about a lecturer visiting West Dorset in 1885: “Mr Oscar Wilde commenced his lecture, and for more than an hour succeeded in interesting and amusing his hearers.”
You sense that the anonymous reporter who wrote this sentence had sat through plenty of lectures by speakers who did not succeed in interesting and amusing their audience.
But then this was indeed the Oscar Wilde, who was talking about “Dress” at the Town Hall in Dorchester. I don’t know if the Dorset County Chronicle report of this event has ever been republished, in whole or in part; I found it purely by chance.
Wilde’s engagement in Dorchester is not recorded in the definitive biography by Richard Ellmann (Oscar Wilde, first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1987), so it’s possible that the Chronicle’s transcription may never have been reproduced.
In which case, it seems a good idea to quote some of it now…
Fashion
“Fashion had been the great enemy of art for centuries. It rested on folly. Fashion was ephemeral, art was eternal.
“Fashion was merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that it had to be altered every six months. (Laughter)
“To dress artistically would be more economical. The amount of money spent on dress in England every year was fabulous. If he were to tell them the sum spent on bonnets alone he was sure one-half of them would be filled with remorse – (laughter) - and the other half would be filled with despair. (Renewed laughter)…
Beauty
“The lecturer then described the dress of the Athenians, which he said was absolutely the most beautiful costume the world had ever seen. The secret of Greek Art was simply that the Greeks knew beauty was something organic, that it comes from within always and never from without, from the perfection of its own being and not from any added ornament.
“They never dreamed of sewing on bows where there should be no bows and flounces where there should be no flounces…
“The factory girl with her shawl over her head and clogs on her feet was far more beautiful than many ladies he had seen in Piccadilly with high-heeled shoes and absurd bonnets…
Men’s dress
“Referring to men’s attire, the lecturer traced what he called their criminal career in costume, and pointed out that the sterner sex had, equally with ladies, been the slaves of the tyrant fashion. He did not think men’s dress was either sensible or practical…
“He knew of no better style of dress than that worn by young men when out fishing, and he favoured generally the costumes worn in outdoor sports.
“The most beautiful dress in England was, he said, among fisherfolk and peasants who had something to do and did it, and all ugly dress was to be found among people who had nothing to do and did it. (Laughter)
“At the close of the lecture there was considerable applause.”
Ten years later, when Wilde was imprisoned, I wonder what all those people who had so enjoyed hearing him speak in Dorchester, I wonder what they thought then?
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