Of these poems the “Saturday Review” said,—and I thank the “Saturday Review” for teaching me these words, for I think they fitly describe nine tenths of all the poetry that gets itself published,—“Mr. Wilde’s verses belong to a class which is the special terror of the reviewers, the poetry which is neither good nor bad, which calls for neither praise nor blame, and in which one searches in vain for any personal touch of thought or music.”
It was at this point in his career that Wilde determined to show himself to us: he came to America to lecture; was, of course, interviewed on his arrival in New York, and spoke with the utmost disrespect of the Atlantic.
“OUR OSCAR” AS HE WAS WHEN WE LOANED HIM TO AMERICA
From a contemporary English caricature
Considering how little ballast Wilde carried, his lectures here were a great success: “Nothing succeeds like excess.” He spoke publicly over two hundred times, and made what was, for him, a lot of money. Looking back, it seems a daring thing to do; but Wilde was always doing daring things. To lecture in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston was all very well; but it would seem to have required courage for Wilde, fresh from Oxford, his reputation based on impudence, long hair, knee-breeches, a volume of poems, and some pronounced opinions on art, to take himself, seriously, west to Omaha and Denver, and north as far as Halifax. However, he went and returned alive, with at least one story which will never die. It was Wilde who said that he had seen in a dance-hall in a mining-camp the sign, “Don’t shoot the pianist; he is doing his best.” The success of this story was instant, and probably prompted him to invent the other one, that he had heard of a man in Denver who, turning his back to examine some lithographs, had been shot through the head, which gave Wilde the chance of observing how dangerous it is to interest one’s self in bad art. He remarked also that Niagara Falls would have been more wonderful if the water had run the other way.
On his return to England he at once engaged attention by his remark, “There is nothing new in America—except the language.” Of him, it was observed that Delmonico had spoiled his figure. From London he went almost immediately to Paris, where he found sufficient reasons for cutting his hair and abandoning his pronounced habiliments. Thus he arrived, as he said of himself, at the end of his second period.
Wilde spoke French fluently and took steps to make himself at home in Paris; with what success, is not entirely clear. He made the acquaintance of distinguished people, wrote verses, and devoted a good deal of time to writing a play for Mary Anderson, “The Duchess of Padua,” which was declined by her and was subsequently produced in this country by Lawrence Barrett and Minna Gale. In spite of their efforts, it lived for but a few nights.