Oscar Wilde at Niagara Falls: The Contrarian Meets His Match

Wilde man.

Oscar Wilde was a man of cities, salons, and stage lights. He preferred velvet cushions to grass, and conversation to scenery. Nature, to him, was usually something to joke about. He once quipped:

“Nature is so uncomfortable. Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects.”

That line — “Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects” — comes from Oscar Wilde’s famous essay The Decay of Lying. In it, the speaker, Vivian, insists that people prefer the man-made beauty of art, design, and architecture to the harsh, indifferent, and uncomfortable reality of the natural world. Not exactly the words of a Romantic poet wandering blissfully in the woods.

Disappointed Everywhere He Went

Oscar Wilde spent a year touring America, crossing paths with literary giants like Walt Whitman and Henry James. When Wilde crossed the Atlantic in 1882, he arrived with his trademark mixture of charm and irony. Even before he reached New York, he found something to fault. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported under the headline “Mr. Wilde

Disappointed with Atlantic

“I am not exactly pleased with the Atlantic. The sea seems tame to me. The roaring ocean does not roar.”

Later, in Buffalo, he took the train north to see Niagara Falls. And, true to form, his first words leaned toward critique:

“I was disappointed in the outline. The design, it seemed to me, was wanting in grandeur and variety of line, but the colors were beautiful.”

A backhanded compliment, but consistent with his contrarian style. Wilde mocked Niagara much as he mocked everything grand. And yet, there was one thing he could not dismiss. He had a knack for mocking the “grand” and the “sublime,” especially when other people took them too seriously. It was both a pose and a philosophy.

The One Thing He Couldn’t Dismiss

That last phrase — “but the colors were beautiful” — tells us everything. Wilde could dismiss an ocean, a landscape, even an insect-filled lawn, but not the rainbow spray of Niagara Falls. The mist rising from the gorge, painted by sunlight into shifting ribbons of green, violet, and gold, broke through even his cultivated irony.

He admitted as much in the guestbook of Prospect House, the hotel where he stayed:

“The roar of these waters is like the roar when the mighty wave of democracy breaks against the shores where kings lie couched at ease.”

For a man usually skeptical of nature, Niagara became more than scenery. It became metaphor, poetry, and power. Read more here.

Wilde’s praise of Niagara — and his vision of democracy — recorded in the guestbook of the Prospect House hotel near the Falls.

Dickens in Awe

Compare Wilde’s shrug to Charles Dickens, who visited Niagara in 1842. Dickens, no stranger to irony himself, dropped all defenses at the sight of the Falls:

“Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an image of beauty, to remain there changeless and indelible until its pulses cease to beat, for ever.”

For Dickens, Niagara was sacred, sublime, and unforgettable. For Wilde, it was a problem of “outline.”

Wilde Taken to Task

Wilde’s remarks were not only noticed — they were lampooned. The British satirical magazine Fun published verses under the title Disappointed Again, poking fun at his habit of deflating natural wonders:

“Universe, you are a failure,

You’re one masterly mistake;

Firmamental glories, pale your fires,

And played-out old earth, quake…

In disappointing Wilde.”

The parody imagines a whole universe trembling under Wilde’s withering gaze — oceans, lakes, even volcanoes — all condemned for failing to impress “the disappointed Wilde.”

Satire of Wilde’s comments in the British magazine “Fun”

Wilde’s Legacy at Niagara

Oscar Wilde never stopped being the critic. Disappointment was part of his performance, part of his wit. Mocking grandeur was Wilde’s way of being both a contrarian and a free thinker. Where others bowed down to size, power, or respectability, he reminded them that bigness isn’t the same as beauty. His irony forced people to look past easy reverence and consider subtler truths.

But Niagara proved that even he could be moved. The colors were enough to still his irony for a moment — proof that some wonders resist even the sharpest tongue. And in his private reflection, the roar of the Falls became something greater: the sound of democracy itself.

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The Prospect House in Ontario.