but student work, the best passages in them being mere paraphrases of Pater and
Arnold, though the titles were borrowed from Whistler. Dr. Ernest Bendz in his
monograph on "The Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of
Oscar Wilde" has established this fact with curious erudition and completeness.

Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and silk
stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave authority. Even
the dullest had to admit that his elocution was excellent, and the manner of
speech is keenly appreciated in America. In some of the Eastern towns, in
New York especially, he had a certain success, the success of sensation and of
novelty, such success as every large capital gives to the strange and eccentric.

In Boston he scored a triumph of character. Fifty or sixty Harvard students
came to his lecture dressed to caricature him in "swallow tail coats, knee
breeches, flowing wigs and green ties. They all wore large lilies in their
buttonholes and each man carried a huge sunflower as he limped along." That
evening Oscar appeared in ordinary dress and went on with his lecture as if he
had not noticed the rudeness. The chief Boston paper gave him due credit:

"Everyone who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must feel about it very
much as we do, and those who came to scoff, if they did not exactly remain to
pray, at least left the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking, and, perhaps
to their own surprise, of respect for Oscar Wilde." (By way of heaping coals of
fire on the students' heads Oscar presented a cast of the Hermes (then recently
unearthed) to the University of Harvard.)

As he travelled west to Louisville and Omaha his popularity dwined and dwindled.
Still he persevered and after leaving the States visited Canada, reaching
Halifax in the autumn.