The Daily Beast follows in the man's footsteps.
From the story...
Wilde then went off to Philadelphia
for a lecture at the Horticultural Hall—he was bored, as so many others
along the way were, by the train’s views of New Jersey. He then called
on Walt Whitman in Camden, where he drank elderberry wine and milk-punch
(“a stoutish mixture of milk and whiskey”), offered praise, and
received some admonishment:
When
he ventured the starchy observation that he, Wilde, couldn’t bear “to
listen to anyone unless he attracts me by a charming style, or by beauty
of theme,” the older poet put him in his place. “Why, Oscar,” said
Whitman, “it always seems to me that the fellow who makes a dead set at
beauty is in a bad way. My idea is that beauty is a result, not an
abstraction.” Wilde quickly retreated. “Yes,” he said, “I think so too.”
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