From Salt Lake City one travels over the great plains of Colorado and up the Rocky Mountains, on the top of which is Leadville, the richest city in the world. It has also got the reputation of being the roughest, and every man carries a revolver. I was told that if I went there they would be sure to shoot me or my traveling manager. I wrote and told them that nothing that they could do to my traveling manager would intimidate me. They are miners, men working in metals, so I lectured them on the Ethics of Art. I read them passages from the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and they seemed much delighted. I was reproved by my hearers for not having brought him with me. I explained that he had been dead for some little time, which elicited the enquiry: “Who shot him?”

From Oscar Wilde’s “Impressions of America,” The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde, New York: Random House, 1968, pp. 9-10.

Addendum (August 5, 2000)

We are parked in front of Nevio Premuš’s house in Brseč, Istria. Lauren turns to a friend, who is sitting in the back of the car with Dorian and Maya, and points toward the house: “This is where Emil Zola lived for a few years.” “Is he still alive?” asks Maya. “No,” I respond, “he is long dead.” “Who shot him?” she asks seriously.