The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, April 28, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
BILL NYE AND MR. WILDE.
The Gentle Humorist Analyzes the
Disgraced English
Esthete.
ALWAYS
THOUGHT HIM A FRAUD.
Their First Meeting, in Which William
Made Use of Some Biting
Sarcasm.
Some years ago there swooped across the wide sky an opaque flaccid invertebrate wearing a cow's breakfast of sunflower and calla lily, while murmuring soft nothings into the ears of those Peter Funk Americanassa who were grubs not so long ago that to be noticed even by the armless man or the wild man of Fort Dodge, Ia., was glory enough for a lifetime. They paid to see him. This creature was named Oscar Wilde. I saw him, met him while he was on his California mission for means, etc., while teaching the upper classes of Red Dog how to combine beet hash to look like Turner's slave ship, while an able Boston reporter described as looking like a tortoise shell cat having an apoplectic fit in a bowl of tomato soup.
Oscar passed on to Yuba Dam, showing the plum butter people how to stand up to a bar like a willow wand, how to avoid grim-visaged war by squirting fine cut tobacco into a violet colored jardiniere.
Ask her passed on to Yuba Dam, shewing the plum butter people how to stand up to a bar like a willow wand, how to avoid grim visaged war by squirting fine cut tobacco into a violet colored jardiniere.
Casually he wrote us up in that jaunty Rollo Book style, such as is used by the Englishman who while here strives to make the whole Waldorf Hotel think that he is taking his tub all the time, whereas he is slumming where beer is low and emigrant girls play Trilby for board and clothes.
Casually he wrote us up in that jaunty Rollo book style such as is used by the Englishman who while here strives to make the whole Waldorf hotel think that he is taking his tub all the time, whereas he is slumming where beer is low and emigrant girls play Trilby for board and clothes.
"But it is in the decay of manners," he said, as he kissed a yellow cigarette finger in farewell to the still good-natured populace, "that the thoughtful and well bred have cause for regret. I have repeatedly said this, especially in places where I have been entertained, but the reply has been always, ‘We are still a young country, and you must not be too severe upon us, Mr Wilde.' Yes, but I must say in reply, ‘Your manners were better 100 years ago than now. They have been never equal to the days since the time of Washington and Pocahontas. Look at Pocahontas as you see her to-day on the currency which I just borrowed of a coarse Californian, the man who used the telegraph pole for a kerchief and the boundless universe for a cuspidor.
"But it is in the decay of manners," he said as he kissed a yellow cigarette finger in farewell to the still good natured populace, "that the thoughtful and well bred have cause for regret. I have repeatedly said this especially in places where I have been entertained, but the reply has been always, ‘We are still a young country, and you must not be too severe upon us, Mr Wilde.' Yes, but I must say in reply, ‘Your manners were better 100 years ago than now. They have been never equal to the days since the time of Washington and Pocahontas. Look at Pocahontas as you see her today on the currency, which I just borrowed or a coarse Californian, a man who used the telegraph pole for a kerchief and the boundless universe for a cuspidor.
"‘I would rather have seen Pocahontas climbing out of the slippery Chicahominy or Minnehaha after taking her tub than to have dined with your yeoman President, who leaves you after four years in a tramcar, by Jove, to the station, with a six bob alarm clock on his knees, for his bleak little bungalow down South.'
"‘I would rather have seen Pocahontas climbing out of the slippery Chickahominy or Minnehaha after taking her tub than to have dined with your yeoman president, who leaves you, after four years, in a tram car, by Jove, to the station, with a six bob alarm clock on his knees, for his bleak little bungalow down south.'
"I believe that a most serious problem for the American people to solve is cultivation among its people. It is the most noticeable, the most painful effect in American civilization."
"I believe that a most serious problem for the American people to solve is cultivation among its people. It is the most noticeable, the most painful effect in American civilization.
"Yes," I said to him in an interview - for I was a poor but proud reporter and he on the Union Pacific with a merry little wallet of coast gold as big as a pug dog at hand - "our manners are a little decayed," said I, "and so will be the eggs with which we greet you on your return. No doubt the nude Indian princess was to you more esthetic than the cultivation of which you know not."
"Yes," I said to him in an interview, for I was a poor but proud reporter and he on the Union Pacific with a merry little wallet of coast gold as big as a pug dog at hand, "our manners are a little decayed," said I, "and so will be the eggs with which we greet you on your return. No doubt the nude Indian princess was to you more esthetic than the cultivation of which you know not."
Oscar Wilde passed me by coldly in after years. He became more and more erotic and gross under the guise of a estheticism, and now the grizzly nobility swear that should he escape a life of imprisonment they will shoot out of him the immoral growth that like mighty stalagmites and stalactites have filled the darkened intellect of this moral toxide of wickedness, this self-indulging erotic tumor and child of sin.
Oscar Wilde passed me by coldly and after years. He became more and more erotic and gross under the guise of a estheticism, and now the grizzly nobility swear that should he escape a life of imprisonment they will shoot out of him the immoral growth that like mighty stalagmites and stalactites have filled the darkened intellect of this moral toxide of wickedness, this self-indulging erotic tumor and child of sin.
About ten years ago I greeted Oc with these lines, and though my neighbors enjoyed it I was by Oc turned down:
About 10 years ago I greeted Oc with these lines, and though my neighbors enjoyed it I was by Oc turned down:
APOSTROPHE ADDRESSED TO O. WILDE.
Soft eyed, seraphic kuss,
With limber legs and lily on the side,
We greet you from the raw
And uncouth West.
Soft eyed, seraphic kuss, With limber legs and lily on the side, We greet you from the raw And uncouth west.
The cowboy yearns to yank thee
To his brawny breast and squeeze
Thy palpitating gizzard
Through thy vest.
The cowboy yearns to yank thee To his brawny breast and squeeze Thy palpitating gizzard Through thy vest.
Come to the mountain fastness,
Oscar, with thy low neck shirt
And high neck pants.
Fly to the coyote’s home.
Thou son of Albion.
Come to the mountain tastness, Oscar, with thy low neck shirt And high neck pants. Fly to the coyote’s home. Thou son of Albion.
James Crow bard and champion æsthete
From o’er the summer sea,
We greet thee
With our free, untutored ways and
wild,
Peculiar style of deadly beverage.
Come to the broad, free West and mingle
With our high-toned mob.
James Crow bard and champion esthete From o’er the summer sea. We greet thee With our free, untutored ways and wild, Peculiar style of deadly beverage. Come to the broad, free west and mingle With our high toned mob.
Come to the glorious occident
And daily with the pack mule’s whisk broom tail
Study his odd yet soft demeanor
And
peculiar mien.
Tickle his gambrel with a sunflower bud
And scoot across the blue horizon
To the too-ness of the sweet and succulent
beyond.
Come to the glorious occident And daily with the pack mule’s whisk broom tail Study his odd yet soft demeanor And peculiar mien. Tickle his gambrel with a sunflower bud And scoot across the blue horizon To the too-ness of the sweet and succulent beyond. We’ll gladly Gather up thy shattered remnants With a broom and ship thee to thy beaucheons home.
We’ll gladly
Gather up thy shattered remnants
With a broom and ship thee to thy beaucheous home.
Sit on the fuzzy cactus,
King of poesy and song.
Ride the fierce bronco o’er the dusty plain
And let the zephyr
sigh among thy buttery locks.
Sit on the fuzzy cactus, King of poesy and song. Ride the fierce branche o’er the dusty plain And let the zephyr sigh among thy buttery locks.
Welcome, thou genius of dyspeptic song,
Thou bilious lunatic from faroff lands,
Come to the home of genius,
By the
snowy hills,
And wrestle with the alcoholic inspiration
Of our cordial home.
Welcome, thou genius of dyspeptic song, Thou bilions lunatic from faroff lands. Come to the home of genius. By the snowy hills. And wrestle with the alcoholic inspiration Of our cordial home.
We yearn
To put the bloom upon thy alabaster nose
And plant the jimjams
In thy clustering hair.
Hail, mighty
snoozer from across the main!
We yearn To put the bloom upon thy alabaster nose And plant the jimjams In thy clustering hair. Hail, mighty snoozer from across the main!
Forget me not,
Thou bilious pelican from o’er the sea.
Thou blue-nosed clam,
With pimply, bulging brow, oh,
Come, and we will welcome thee
With ancient omelet and
fragrant sausage
Of forgotten years.
Thou blue-nosed clam With pimply, bulging brow, O. Come, and we will welcome thee With ancient omelet and fragrant sausage Of forgotten years.
After I criticised Oscar in paternal words I told him to cease writing poems and buy a costermonger’s donkey that would match his own pelt and go into business on Piccadilly, but he was stiff-necked and sought society. It has taken society just about nine years to see what Josh Titus knew as soon as he looked in his mouth – Oc’s mouth, I mean. Bill Root sized up Oscar Wilde in seven minutes, and yet it took the drawn butter thing, with which society cephalizes most ten years, to discover that Wilde was a highly caparisoned ass, a glutton who had eaten up the institute to which he was sent for a cure, a drunkard who took everything damp from stump water to camphene and nitric acid, besides being more immoral generally than the Prince of Wales, yet having all these knick-knacks paid out of the fund set aside for keeping his father's grave green.
I have no more to say, though he was cold and cruel to me when in his country. When a man gets at the end of his rope I let him go. Now that Oc has reached the Old Bailey, with a long vista of striped panties running down the galley toward his den, not even allowed his cigarette, cursing not his humility even yet, but chafing over the loss of his salad oil or his coarse slop jar and ill-matched jardiniere, he forgets wife and boys to beg of the jailer for the butt of a stale and well-mouthed cigarette.
I have no more to say, though he was cold and cruel to me when in his country. When a man gets at the end of his rope I let him go. Now that Oc has reached the Old Bailey, with a long vista of striped panties running down the galley toward his den, not even allowed his cigarette, cursing not his humility even yet, but chafing over the loss of his salad oil or his coarse slop jar and ill-matched jardiniere, he forgets wife and boys to beg of the jailer for the butt of a stale and well-mouthed cigarette.
Let us think more of our own neighbors and what buds on our own soil. All that is imported is not great.
Let us think more of our own neighbors and what buds on our own soil. All that is imported is not great.
When I returned a year ago from England I brought a full blood Jersey bull three years old, just as foreign as he could be, but when I tried to put our new engagement ring in his nose he let off a deafening roar and mussed me up so in the chest that the doctor on board our ship worked on me all the afternoon, and even then there were eight feet more intestines than he could use. It was like putting back the mainspring of an old Waterbury watch, he said.
When I returned a year ago from England, I brought a full blood Jersey bull 3 years old, just as foreign as he could be, but when I tried to put our new engagement ring in his nose he let off a deafening roar and mussed me up so in the chest that the doctor onboard our ship worked on me all the afternoon and even then there were eight feet more intestines than he could use. It was like putting back the mainspring of an old Waterbury watch, he said.
So no more at this time. Your friend,
Bill Nye
(Copyright, 1895, by Edgar W. Nye.)