Waving sunflower and lily,
He calls all the houses “illy”
Decorated and designed.
For of taste they’ve not a tittle;
They may chew and they may whittle;
But they are all born colour blind!”
From the States he went to Canada, and thence to Nova Scotia, the Halifax Morning Herald of October 10, 1882, gave an amusing account of an interview held with him by their own “Interviewer.” “The apostle had no lily, nor yet a sunflower. He wore a velvet jacket which seemed to be a good jacket. He had an ordinary necktie and wore a linen collar about number eighteen on a neck half a dozen sizes smaller. His legs were in trousers, and his boots were apparently the product of New York art, judging by their pointed toes. His hair is the colour of straw, slightly leonine, and when not looked after, goes climbing all over his features. Mr. Wilde was communicative and genial; he said he found Canada pleasant, but in answer to a question as to whether European or American women were the more beautiful, he dexterously evaded his querist.”
The remainder of the conversation was devoted to poetry; he expressed his opinion that Poe was the greatest American poet, and that Walt Whitman, if not a poet, is a man who sounds a strong note, perhaps neither prose nor poetry, but something of his own that is grand, original and unique.
On this topic The Century, for November, 1882, contained an exquisitely humorous poem written by Helen Gray Cone, describing an imaginary interview between Oscar Wilde and the great poetical Egotist—Walt Whitman. The style and diction of both are admirably hit off. The parody of Whitman reads, indeed, like an excerpt from his works.
Unfortunately, as the poem is very long, only an extract can be given:—