THE
PFTERITE. Vol . . III .
APRIL, 1881 .
No .
2o.
OXFORD JESTHETICISM. T is not my intention (I believe it is the correct thing to begin an article with stating what it is not the writer ' s intention to do) to enter upon any general discussion of aestheticism . Not that I am prepared to say that even some explanation of the term might not be without its use to some of the readers of the Pcteritc. I well remember one worthy subscriber (peace be with him ! he wears a gown now, and, for anything I know to the contrary, dotes on blue china and peacock's feathers), who, from an allusion in the Oxford letter of this Magazine to " an aesthetic pipe, " innocently entertained for some considerable time a vague idea that estlicticism had something to do with smoking . I must confess, too, that I was myself once rather hard put to it at school to find a definition without the aid of Dr . Johnson, when I was suddenly attacked by the house " boots, " who wanted to know, with many apologies for the liberty he was taking in asking the question, if I could tell him the meaning of a word—he couldn ' t remember what, but it was something like " energetic, " " phonetic," or " fanatic," though not exactly any of them . I afterwards discovered that he had been decorating his sanctum with some prints, and that some one had told him he was growing esthetic . Unable to divine whether this was a compliment or an insult, he had come to me for a solution of his doubts. But, by way of informing the reader what I am not going to do, I have made a rather lengthy digression . Let me say, then, what my intention is . It is merely to set down a few of the current stories relating to the development of a phenomenon of the times on the banks of the Isis .