Ohio History Journal

OSCAR WILDE IN CLEVELAND*

by FRANCIS X. ROELLINGER, JR.

Assistant Professor of English, Oberlin College

A Clevelander in search of amusement during the week of

February 12, 1882, could rejoice at the number and variety, if

not the excellence, of his opportunities. At the Euclid Avenue

Opera House, Mr. John McCullough, the eminent tragedian, fresh

from a brilliant season in London, was presenting a repertoire

that included Othello and Richard III. At the Academy of Music,

Buffalo Bill and his "mammoth combination," including a beauti-

ful Sioux Princess, a Boy Chief of the Pawnees, and a Genuine

Band of Noted Winnebago Indian Chiefs, were playing in a new

drama called The Prairie Waif. On Wednesday evening, at the

Forest City Gymnasium, there would be a reception in honor of

Mr. John L. Sullivan, who had just won the heavyweight cham-

pionship of the world by his victory over Paddy Ryan in New

Orleans.

Saturday night would be, appropriately, the climax of the

week's round of pleasures; a gentleman of catholic tastes might

find it difficult to choose among several promising diversions.

Should he go to the Academy of Music to laugh at Mr. Gus

Williams in Our German Senator, billed as "the most excru-

ciatingly funny comedy ever written"? Could he afford to miss a

last chance to see Mr. McCullough in Richard Montgomery Bird's

The Gladiator? Or might it not be more instructive to hear the

Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, the only rival of Henry Ward Bee-

cher, at the Cleveland Tabernacle on the subject of "Big

Blunders"? This lecture, described as the "sixth entertainment in

the Bureau of Education Course," would explain, so the notices

said, "how people failed of success in life because of big blun-

ders," and the explanation would be full of "telling truths, wit,

and eloquence." Still the list would not be exhausted. Lacking

* This article was originally delivered as a paper at the annual meeting of the

Ohio College Association at Columbus, April 8-9, 1949.

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130 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

a mood for one of these amusements, our Clevelander had yet

another option: he could go to Case Hall to hear Oscar Wilde

lecture on "The English Renaissance of Art."

But who was Oscar Wilde, and what was he doing in that

galley? This question interested the editor of the Herald, who

in mid-January sent out an inquiring reporter to find the answer.

The results were disconcerting. When, for example, the question

of the day, "What do you think of Oscar Wilde?" was put to

Mr. Joe Keary, a prominent politician, Joe "pondered a moment,

glanced cautiously up and down the street, and then replied:

'Well, he's a dom good fellow, and if he comes up next spring

I'll support him.'" Even the chief of police was flabbergasted.

"Hoss car wild?" he cried. "On what line?"

Of course these imaginary gentlemen were not representative

of the actual state of public knowledge in Cleveland on the sub-

ject of Oscar Wilde. Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience and the

cartoons of George Du Maurier had carried his fame from

Piccadilly to Public Square. In an article announcing his arrival

in New York early in January, the Plain Dealer could refer to

him as "Oscar Bunthorne Maudle Wilde" without explaining

the meaning of the title. A Clevelander could be expected to

know that "Bunthorne" was the chief comic character in Patience

and that he was a burlesque of a long-haired young English poet

who wore velvet knee breeches and silk stockings and walked

down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in his medieval hand.

The same reader would also know that "Maudle" was George

Du Maurier's caricature of the same young man, who said, among

other delightful things, that he did not care for bathing because

he always saw himself so dreadfully foreshortened in the water.

If he read his newspapers, which reprinted articles on Wilde

and estheticism from the Pall Mall Gazette and the London Spec-

tator, the Clevelander of 1882 must have shared the prevailing

conception of Oscar Wilde.

Perhaps we should remember that this conception differed

from our present idea of him in important ways: in 1882 Oscar

Wilde was not yet the amoral dandy and man of the world, not

yet the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray; much less was he

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Oscar Wilde in Cleveland             131

the broken, degraded figure of the notorious trials of 1895. When

he arrived in New York he was twenty-eight years old. He had

come up from Oxford to London only four years before. At Ox-

ford he had been a disciple of Walter Pater and John Ruskin,

and he had won the Newdigate Prize for poetry with a poem in-

spired by his travels in Italy. In London he had made himself

known to the British public chiefly by ostentatiously courting

famous actresses, dressing in extravagant costumes, espousing

estheticism, and writing what the public thought were rather

sensational poems. He was not taken too seriously; the popular

and perhaps quite truthful view was that Oscar Wilde had de-

liberately assumed a role for the sake of notoriety and that

underneath it, to quote the phrases of the article referred to

above, he was "a young man of solid attainments . . . highly

educated . . . an excellent conversationalist . . . and a perfect

gentleman."

"Everybody," the dramatic critic of the Plain Dealer could

truthfully say, "Everybody has read more or less of Patience,

Gilbert and Sullivan's satire on the esthetic craze." The occasion

of this remark was an unauthorized presentation of the work at

the Opera House, the first of two productions by different com-

panies before Wilde's visit to Cleveland. When D'Oyly Carte, the

well known impresario for Gilbert and Sullivan, brought the poet

to America and sent him on a tour of the provinces in knee

breeches and silk stockings, cynics remarked that Oscar was to be

an advance poster for Patience. In Cleveland the reverse proved

to be the case: the pirate companies were advance posters for

Oscar himself. "Satire on him," said another newspaper report

in anticipation of his visit, "has only whetted public curiosity and

stimulated desire to know more of the 'true inwardness' of his

philosophy of art and nature."

And so it is not surprising that for many weeks before his

arrival, Oscar Wilde was very much in the Cleveland mind. Few

issues of the daily news went to press without some report or

anecdote or joke about him. Characteristic of such items were

announcements to the effect that he wore "bright ruby satin sus-

penders, embroidered with Marguerites and green leaves," and

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132 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

that he smoked cigarettes, of course. The Herald used him to

poke fun at the religious bias of the proprietor of its rival, the

Leader: "Mr. Cowles is very shy of Oscar Wilde. He suspects

him of being a Jesuit in disguise." But these references are in-

teresting, not so much for their number and frequency, as for

their signification of the nature and extent of the popular knowl-

edge of things Wilde and esthetic. This must be my only excuse

for repeating such bad jokes as the following. From the Herald

of January 7: "Oscar Wilde is to open in Boston. He will walk

up Beacon Street with a bean in his hand." Or this, from the

head of a column of railroad news in the Plain Dealer: "An

esthetic train--the 2:02." The former assumes familiarity with

the lines from Patience referred to above; the latter requires an

awareness of the "too, too, utterly too" jargon of estheticism. A

typesetter for the Penny Press told Mr. Russell Bacon, to whom I

am indebted for much of this information, that he could not

estimate the number of such items that he alone set up during this

memorable time.¹ Enterprising Euclid and Superior Avenue mer-

chants took timely advantage of what was called the "Wilde

craze." The proprietor of the largest photographic gallery in

town displayed copies of the now famous Sarony portraits, and

a caricature of the poet by a local artist attracted the attention of

passers-by to a display of the latest carpets in Sterling's windows.

"Esthetic shoes for gentlemen" could be bought at Seaman and

Smith's, 174 Superior Avenue. Florists capitalized on the demand

for sunflower seeds and lilies. "There were masquerades," Mr.

Bacon reports, "at which sunflowers, lilies, and Bunthorne cos-

tumes were the rage."

And now the long-awaited day was at hand. The prospect of

being host in the same week to a champion heavyweight prize-

fighter and a renowned esthete, who was also no lightweight,

challenged the local wits. "Like Mr. Wilde," said the Herald,

"Mr. Sullivan wears an abbreviated costume when prepared for

public scrutiny. Esthetes who cannot leave home on Saturday

 

1 Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 8, 1937. Mr. Bacon's articles on "Cleveland

Discovers Oscar Wilde," were published in the Plain Dealer at intervals from

December 27, 1936, to January 21, 1937.

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Oscar Wilde in Cleveland             133

night [to hear Mr. Wilde] may be able to put in an appearance

on Wednesday night [to see Mr. Sullivan]." A few days later

the same wag tried again. "The absent-minded should not get

things mixed. Mr. Wilde does not spar at the armory this eve-

ning, but at Case Hall Saturday night. Mr. Sullivan is the gentle-

man who lectures at the armory." Oscar was fair game, but there

was some fear that the joke might be carried too far. It was

known that he had been treated rather rudely on one or two

occasions: in Boston, Harvard students had tried to disrupt his

lecture by entering the hall dressed in outlandish esthetic cos-

tumes, and in New Haven two hundred Yale students greeted him

with a display of red neckties and large sunflowers. When it was

rumored about Cleveland that young blades of the town were

planning to appear at the lecture in knee breeches, the Plain

Dealer warned that they would only "advertise their inferiority

to Wilde both in sense and manners." The editor of the Herald,

also concerned over the possibility of an incident, concluded a

paragraph of fatherly advice to the would-be pranksters with this

appeal to civic pride: "Above all, remember that Cleveland's

politeness is on trial."

To Cleveland then he came, by the old Lake Shore Railroad

from Detroit. It was a clear, cold Saturday afternoon. No crowd

of admirers, none of the curious, thronged the Union depot to

greet him. The Cleveland promoter of his lecture, Mr. Will

Cotton, a stenographer for the Standard Oil Company, was no

Barnum. But he escorted Oscar Wilde to the best hotel, the

Forest City House, which stood near the southwest corner of

Superior Avenue and Public Square, on the present site of the

Hotel Cleveland. A reporter who came for an interview at about

five o'clock has preserved the entry on the register: "Oscar Wilde

and servant, of England, Room 55." A colored valet ushered the

caller into the presence; the stage was set exactly as it had been

on many similar occasions. The interview is best described in

the Corinthian style of the young lion of the Herald:

Oscar was lolling

on an elegant sofa and did not rise until his visitor had crossed the room.

He then arose slowly, extended his hand reluctantly, and pointed the

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134 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

reporter to a chair beside his own luxurious divan.

In the center of the room was a small unesthetic-looking table at

which the languid poet had just dined. The viands which remained uncon-

sumed were just such as would be looked for in the menu of the esthete-

jellies, custards, pastries, etc., all served on decorated china. The sofa

on which the poet languished had offended his fastidious taste and he

had accordingly caused to be spread over it an afghan and a silk shawl

of an old gold tint.

Mr. Wilde himself

was attired in a velvet coat and vest of brown, and a substantial pair of

ordinary pantaloons. In personal appearance he is exactly what the pre-

vailing photographs represent him to be, save that a pair of rather

obtrusive front teeth are displayed in conversation. His face is even

more smooth and girlish than would appear in the photographs and

caused to flit through the scribe's mind the horrible suspicion that Oscar

has

Never yet had occasion to shave.

Between his thumb and forefinger he held a dainty cigaret, which

from time to time, he thrust between his rubicund lips, puffing the fragrant

smoke above his head in circling clouds that delighted his yearning

soul.2

He was asked the usual questions: What had inspired him

to undertake his esthetic mission? What did he hope to accom-

plish? What did he think of the United States? How did he feel

about the hostile reception of him by the press? The answers

were spontaneous, animated, sincere, and very long-winded.

Italy, Oxford, and John Ruskin had motivated his passion for

art. In his utopia he would have men surrounded with beautiful

and inspiring objects. Above all, he would create artistic temper-

ament, for that was the secret of all joy in life, and the keynote

of civilization. Schools of design in every city would teach men

how to create beauty. The American West, he found, was much

more interesting than the seaboard: "The people in Chicago I

find simple and strong," he said, "without the foolish prejudices

that have influenced Eastern America. ... In fact, the side of

your American civilization those of us in Europe who are watch-

ing your young republic are most interested in, is not the East

but the West. We want to see what civilization you are making for

2 Herald, February 20, 1882.

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Oscar Wilde in Cleveland             135

yourselves and by yourselves." That last sentence is astonish-

ingly prophetic of the cry of Sherwood Anderson in Chicago three

generations later: "We want to see if we are any good out here,

we Americans from all over hell."

Shortly before eight o'clock, Oscar Wilde rode or walked

from the Forest City House to Case Hall, the third floor of the

Case Block, a building which stood on the corner of Superior

N. E. and East Third Street. In local history it is referred to as

the "most noted concert and lecture hall of its day." It accom-

modated 2,000 people in what were then called "patent opera

chairs." Its walls and ceilings, decorated by an artist named

Garibaldi, had reverberated to the voices of Wilkie Collins, Bret

Harte, Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Charlotte Cushman, Henry

Ward Beecher, Bob Ingersoll, . . . and Tom Thumb.

A few minutes after eight, Oscar Wilde crossed the stage

and without any preliminaries began to read his lecture. "Evi-

dently nobody was found who dared introduce him," said the

Plain Dealer. He was dressed "as per contract," said the Herald,

"in knee breeches and dark blue stockings, white vest, white kid

gloves and a dress coat. An unlimited expanse of shirt front

terminated above in a neat collar and silk tie." Although the

reporters were impressed with what he said, their judgment of

his presence and delivery were adverse. The Plain Dealer thought

him "one of the awkwardest men who ever stood upon a lecture

platform." The Herald noted that "his utterance was a prolonged

monotone, without cadence or inflection, his gestures were con-

fined to the crossing of his gloved hands over his abdomen or

behind his back.... His bow of salutation and of farewell could

have been as well made by any wooden automaton with a horse's

tail divided over its head."

The summary of the lecture published in the Plain Dealer

indicates that the Cleveland version of The English Renaissance

of Art did not differ substantially from the work published later

under the same title. There is no evidence of adaptation to local

conditions, no mention of references to local culture. Such omis-

sion is not remarkable, for the speaker had arrived in the city

but a few hours before facing his audience. Perhaps we may

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136 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

conclude that Oscar Wilde was unimpressed with the illumination

of Public Square by twelve of Mr. Brush's new electric lights at a

cost of one dollar per hour. Perhaps the decorations of Garibaldi

and the patent opera chairs left him cold.

Clevelanders who heard this lecture were exposed to Oscar

Wilde's interpretation of the aesthetic movement that began with

the Pre-Raphaelites. They heard his praise of Swinburne, Ros-

setti, Ruskin, Holman Hunt, Millais, Burne-Jones, and William

Morris. Possibly, as Max Beerbohm thought, some of them heard

for the first time the name of Charles Baudelaire. They were told

to love art for its own sake, and then all things that they needed

would be added to them. They heard from the master's own lips

a few of the famous epigrams: "[Satire is] the usual homage that

mediocrity pays to genius." "To disagree with three-fourths of

the British public on all points is one of the first elements of

sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spir-

itual doubt." Finally, before leaving the hall, they received this

benediction:

Let there be no flower in your meadows that does not wreathe its

tendrils around your pillows, no little leaf in your Titan forests that does

not lend its form to design, no curving spray of wild rose or brier that

does not live forever in carven arch or window or marble, no bird in your

air that is not giving the iridescent wonder of its colour, the exquisite

curves of its wings in flight, to make more precious the preciousness of

simple adornment. For the voices that have their dwelling in sea and

mountain are not the chosen music of liberty only. Other messages are

there in the wonder of wind-swept heights and the majesty of silent

deep-messages that, if you will listen to them, will give you the wonder

of all new imagination, the treasure of all new beauty.

We spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life.

Well, the secret of life is in art.

The Leader estimated the attendance at "six hundred of the

most intelligent and refined people of the city," but the Plain

Dealer reduced this figure to less than five hundred. According to

the Herald the lecture was respectfully received: "Oscar was well

treated," it said. "In fact, he had more fun out of it than his

audience." Again the Plain Dealer dissented, with the remark that

"his monotonous delivery put some of his hearers to sleep, most

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Oscar Wilde in Cleveland             137

of the others were drowsy, and many were discourteous enough to

leave the hall during the lecture." The charge for general ad-

mission was 75¢, for reserved seats $1.00. Oscar Wilde's share

of the receipts was $250. Mr. Cotton reported that he barely

managed to break even on his esthetic venture.

When Oscar Wilde left the platform, a young Cleveland

artist rushed backstage and asked him what he considered to be

the proper method of painting china. "You go into the garden,"

said Oscar, "and pluck a rose. Don't paint it naturally, but cons

ventionalize it." As he proceeded to explain at great length what

he meant, Mr. Cotton interrupted several times to remind him

that he would be late for his next appointment. But Wilde

ignored these interruptions until he finished what he wanted to

say. "He showed not the least irritation," said this Clevelander

more than fifty years after the event. "He seemed happy to help

along a boy interested in art." The incident is charming evidence,

if any were needed, of the sincerity of Oscar Wilde.

The delay did not prevent him from seeing the last act of

The Gladiator from a private box at the Opera House. No doubt

he had seen this play before; for over half a century it had been

a popular vehicle for American and English tragedians. No

doubt he had heard worse actors than Mr. McCullough declaim

the last words of the dying gladiator:

Well-never heed the tempest-

There are green valleys in our mountains yet-

Set forth the sails-We'll be in Thrace anon.

After the play, the faithful Mr. Cotton escorted his guest to

the Windsor Club, a short-lived convivial society of businessmen,

perhaps a lesser sort of Union Club. The rooms were on the

second floor of a building at the northeast corner of West Sixth

and Frankfort streets. A substantial banquet had been prepared

in honor of the poet, and a small party of distinguished Cleve-

landers was waiting to greet him. His hosts entertained their

genial guest until 3:30 A.M. in what history describes as "story-

telling, reminiscences, and varied conversation." Unfortunately,

no Cleveland Boswell was present, and the talk has been irretriev-

ably lost. On Sunday the poet remained in his hotel, receiving

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138   Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

few calls, and taking his meals in his room. At 7:30 P.M. he

hoarded a train for Cincinnati.

In his very good book on Oscar Wilde, Edouard Roditi re-

marks that "his travels in America seem to have opened his eyes to

the naive and unworldly nature of . . . Romantic socialism; as a

dandy and a man of the world, he abandoned, on his return to

Europe, the Pre-Raphaelite politics of the esthete, although he

never lost interest in political and social problems."³ Did his

visit to Cleveland contribute to this development? We shall never

know. Of the effect of Cleveland on Oscar Wilde no record sur-

vives. And so this account has necessarily been limited to the

effect of Oscar Wilde on Cleveland. Incomplete as so brief an

account must be, it would be even more fragmentary without

mention of his last public act before leaving the city. It is alto-

gether characteristic of Oscar Wilde and significant of the spirit

of his mission to America: he lectured the news agent at the

Union depot on the evils of reading blood and thunder stories.

 

3 Oscar Wilde (Norfolk, Conn., 1947), 150.

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