“Beg your parding, Mrs. Harding,
Is our kitting in your garding,
Eating of a mutting-bone?”
“No, he's gone to Londing.
How many miles to Londing?”
“Eleving? I thought it was only seving.
Heavings! What a long way from
home!”
— from a popular music-hall 19th Century
song —
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Pictured are Richard Reginald “Kitten”
Harding, William Welsford “Bouncer” Ward, & Oscar Wilde at Oxford,
March 12, 1876.
Reginald Harding, was deemed “Kitten”
by Oscar Wilde during his Oxford years after the popular song of the time quoted above. He
was one of Oscar's greatest friends during the latter part of the 1870's. Letters to him
from Oscar typically began: “My dear Kitten.” In one letter Oscar tells him
about the grounds & garden at Bringham Rectory in Notts: “I came down here Monday
and had no idea it was so lovely. A wonderful garden with such white lilies and rose
walks; only that there are no serpents or apples it would be quite Paradise...”
Oscar, keeping with the feline theme, referred to Harding's brother as “Puss”
and his sister as “Miss Puss.” |
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from an early, 1960s Valentine
Zantrex 3 here