While on tour, Wilde met with various dignitaries and writers, including Walt Whitman and Henry James. The visit with Whitman, at the poet's home in Camden, New Jersey, was precipitated by an interview in which Wilde was asked to name his favorite American poets. He mentioned Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Wilde actually preferred Edgar Allan Poe for his dark moods and Aestheticism, but Poe was dead. Wilde was enough of a self-promoter to mention living writers.
The Philadelphia Press interviewed Whitman at length the evening of his introduction to Wilde (January 19, 1882). Whitman reported that he and Wilde had "a jolly good time" and that Wilde was genuine, honest, and without affectation. They spoke of Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne while sharing a bottle of homemade elderberry wine. Wilde was respectful and on his best behavior. Later he would qualify his assessment of Whitman's poetry while continuing to respect him as a philosopher and a man.
Wilde's meeting with Henry James was less successful. The novelist called on Wilde at the latter's hotel in Washington, D. C., two days after Wilde's visit with Whitman. On this occasion, Wilde was less than diplomatic. When James expressed nostalgia for London, Wilde chose to be clever rather than considerate and commented, "You care for places? The world is my home." Wilde's comment seems particularly inappropriate considering that James was the more cultivated cosmopolitan. At any rate, James concluded that Wilde was "a fatuous fool" and "a tenth-rate cad."
Wilde returned to England at the end of the year having concluded a generally successful and profitable tour. He later (1883–85) conducted a sporadic series of lectures on his impressions of America to British audiences.
