The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-01
WILLIE WILDE DROPPED.
The Lotos Club Remembered a Iit.l,
Matter That He Forgot.


has just been afforded by the fact that
nobody has been taken by surprise though
Mr.. William Wilde, equally distinguished
as the brother of the great original
aesthetic and the husband of Mrs. Frank
Leslie, has been dropped from member
ship by the LOtos Club for having long.
continuously, and contumaciously failed
to pay his dues and other things
1t does not. apparently mitigate the of.
tense of Mr.. Wilde that the sum of mis-
offending in this particular instance
amounts to as much as Sl4.
He has, to repeat, been dropped from
| the club rolls, and the place in which he
was won't to sit and drink brandy and
| soda at other peoples expense, and recall
with anecdotes, the society he used to
adOrn in London, will know HIM no more
Neither will his memory be kept green by
| permanent residence on the black board of
| the club that now misses him, yet does
not to any serious extent mourn his loss
A member of the LOtOs had this TO say,
among other things, about the celebrated
man who once boosted simultaneously OF
| four thingS-that he was Lady Wilde's
son, Oscar Wilde's brother, Mrs. Leslie's
| husband and barrister at law of the In
| ner Temple.
II do not think that if Wilde should
| ever return to this country, even the most
sanguine and well-meaning brass band
would salute him with the strains of
| Willie, We Have Missed You Not that
| he was half bad fellow. He could tell
| pretty good story once in a while and
| chaps who wanted to sit up all night and
swig, but didn't care to do so in solitude,
could always count on having his com.
pany-if they were willing 10 foot the
| bill
HE was the most thoroughgoing night
owl that ever lived and positively hated
| daylight.
"He was a well-educated man, too, and
| could write Interestingly, but in a light
| and frivolous vein. He owed most of his
! celebrity to his hight and his easy-gOing
manner and, above all, to his excellent
| limitations of his brother, the aesthetic
| These latter were simply killing.
You know, Oscar had fat potato
| chOked sort of voice, and to hear Willie
counterfeit that voice and recite parodies
of his brothers poetry while he struck
| appropriate and aesthetic attitudes was
rare treat.
He was, beyond question, the very
| LATEST man that ever went around in shoe
leather Once he said to me, You Ameri-
cans have got one deiciously neat phrase.
| You speak of man being born tired
| That suits me to a dot, was born tired,
and l shall suffer from that congenial
| tired feeling to the very last Yes, he
was lazy beyond all ordinary belief"
Then Mrs. Leslie had good grounds
for her plaintive protest that Willie
wouldn't work?"
81 should rather say she had. WOrki
He never even tried to work-never 50
| much as made a pretenSe of trying to
work On one occasion he lameuted to
me that he was not born in the latter
| DAYS of Rome, when fellows used to have
| slaves to feed them at dinner time"
''Was he much distressed by Mrs. Les.
lies complaints to the public of his idle
ness"
| Not he-not for a moment. remem-
| Der the day the thing was published. We
were in the club, as usual, and somebody
had told him that his wife had discussed
| him in an interview with reporter. It
did't faze him a bit. He was, however,
| too lazy to read the article for himself So
| he asked me to read 1T for him. When |
! had finished he made no comment on it,
| So l said to him, How about this 2 He
made ring of cigar smoke, watched it,
| and said:
"'Oh! That's all right, old chap!'
"And that was the only reference he
ever made to It,"
Didn't Mrs Leslie complain that he
| spent most of his time at the Lotos ClubV'
"She did, indeed. and made it part Of
| her charges against him, too, in her APP
plication for divorce. He remarked, on a
certain occasion:
"'What of it? Suppose 1 spend my
| time there Don't l spend her money
there, too It's an even thing between
! the two of us, isn't it 20
He took the divorce very coolly, did
he not ~
Like everything else. He was regu-
! lar Sir Charles Coldstream, the most
used-up man in the world and every
| thing was q bore. But he told a friend
of mine that he would make fight
against the case in London, and, being
| barrister at law, determined to conduct
the affair in person. He said to my
! friend:
"'Look here, this is the greatest chance
of my life. I've never had a client yet,
though I've been a barrister long time.
| So I'll take advantage of my opportunity
and retain myself for my own defense
"And, l believe, he made a pretty hot
defense, too. But it took place in London,
and consequently nobody ever heard OF 1t
| here
Somebody once had the audacity to
ask him why he married Mrs. Leslie.
lie blew cigar ring-he was great
hand at cigar rings, Wilde was, and
calmly made reply:
""Pon my soul, l don't know! Do your
I really ought to have married Mrs. Lang
try, suppose
"When the friend to whom l alluded
Just now met Willie in London last
spring, he limited to him that if he were
going to resume his residence in London
it wouldn't be bad thing to do to square
up his accounts in New York. Next day
my friend met Willie who said:
" Look here, my boy, I've been medl-
tating very seriously what you said to me
about settling up my small l. .. US in
New York Don't sou think my late wife,
Mrs. Leslie ought 10 do it for the sake OF
the family2'"
what is he doing in London?'
I'm not quite positive. All know IS
/ that he told the same friend:
Some day I'm going to buy second
hand copy of Rochetoucauld's maXims,
and then I'll set up play foundry in Lon
don in opposition TO my brother Oscar"
us there any'prospect of his paying up
his debt to the Lotos?"
The member of that corporation thus
challenged looked out of the window,
twisted his mustache, and then replied
graveiy:
That greatly depends, think, on the
c, lracter OF the profits of Mr.. William
| Wilde's contemplated play foundry"
A Superb Business Man.