Oscar’s Reputation and Supporters

“Believe me, child, all the gentleman’s misfortunes arose from his being educated at a public school. . . . ”

FIELDING.

In England success is a plant of slow growth. The tone of good society, though responsive to political talent, and openly, eagerly sensitive to money-making talent, is contemptuous of genius and rates the utmost brilliancy of the talker hardly higher than the feats of an acrobat. Men are obstinate, slow, trusting a bank-balance rather than brains; and giving way reluctantly to sharp-witted superiority. The road up to power or influence in England is full of pitfalls and far too arduous for those who have neither high birth nor wealth to help them. The natural inequality of men instead of being mitigated by law or custom is everywhere strengthened and increased by a thousand effete social distinctions. Even in the best class where a certain easy familiarity reigns there is circle above circle, and the summits are isolated by heredity.

The conditions of English society being what they are, it is all but impossible at first to account for the rapidity of Oscar Wilde’s social success; yet if we tell over his advantages and bring one or two into the account which have not yet been reckoned, we shall find almost every element that conduces to popularity. By talent and conviction he was the natural pet of the aristocracy whose selfish prejudices he defended and whose leisure he amused. The middle class, as has been noted, disliked and despised him: but its social influence is small and its papers, and especially Punch, made him notorious by attacking him in and out of season. The comic weekly, indeed, helped to build up his reputation by the almost inexplicable bitterness of its invective.

Another potent force was in his favour. From the beginning he set himself to play the game of the popular actor, and neglected no opportunity of turning the limelight on his own doings. As he said, his admiration of himself was “a lifelong devotion,” and he proclaimed his passion on the housetops.

Our names happened to be mentioned together once in some paper, I think it was The Pall Mall Gazette. He asked me what I was going to reply.

“Nothing,” I answered, “why should I bother? I’ve done nothing yet that deserves trumpeting.”

“You’re making a mistake,” he said seriously. “If you wish for reputation and fame in this world, and success during your lifetime, you ought to seize every opportunity of advertising yourself. You remember the Latin word, ‘Fame springs from one’s own house.’ Like other wise sayings, it’s not quite true; fame comes from oneself,” and he laughed delightedly; “you must go about repeating how great you are till the dull crowd comes to believe it.”

“The prophet must proclaim himself, eh? and declare his own mission?”

“That’s it,” he replied with a smile; “that’s it.

“Every time my name is mentioned in a paper, I write at once to admit that I am the Messiah. Why is Pears’ soap successful? Not because it is better or cheaper than any other soap, but because it is more strenuously puffed. The journalist is my ‘John the Baptist.’ What would you give, when a book of yours comes out, to be able to write a long article drawing attention to it in The Pall Mall Gazette? Here you have the opportunity of making your name known just as widely; why not avail yourself of it? I miss no chance,” and to do him justice he used occasion to the utmost.

Curiously enough Bacon had the same insight, and I have often wondered since whether Oscar’s worldly wisdom was original or was borrowed from the great Elizabethan climber. Bacon says:

“‘Boldly sound your own praises and some of them will
stick.’ . . . It will stick with the more ignorant and the
populace, though men of wisdom may smile at it; and the
reputation won with many will amply countervail the disdain
of a few. . . . And surely no small number of those who are of
solid nature, and who, from the want of this ventosity,
cannot spread all sail in pursuit of their own honour,
suffer some prejudice and lose dignity by their moderation.”

Many of Oscar’s letters to the papers in these years were amusing, some of them full of humour. For example, when he was asked to give a list of the hundred best books, as Lord Avebury and other mediocrities had done, he wrote saying that “he could not give a list of the hundred best books, as he had only written five.”

Winged words of his were always passing from mouth to mouth in town. Some theatre was opened which was found horribly ugly: one spoke of it as “Early Victorian.”

“No, no,” replied Oscar, “nothing so distinctive. ‘Early Maple,’ rather.”

Even his impertinences made echoes. At a great reception, a friend asked him in passing, how the hostess, Lady S— — could be recognised. Lady S—— being short and stout, Oscar replied, smiling:

“Go through this room, my dear fellow, and the next and so on till you come to someone looking like a public monument, say the effigy of Britannia or Victoria — that’s Lady S——.”

Though he used to pretend that all this self-advertisement was premeditated and planned, I could hardly believe him. He was eager to write about himself because of his exaggerated vanity and reflection afterwards found grounds to justify his inclination. But whatever the motive may have been the effect was palpable: his name was continually in men’s mouths, and his fame grew by repetition. As Tiberius said of Mucianus:

“Omnium qu? dixerat feceratque, arte quadam ostentator” (He had a knack of showing off and advertising whatever he said or did).

But no personal qualities, however eminent, no gifts, no graces of heart or head or soul could have brought a young man to Oscar Wilde’s social position and popularity in a few years.

Another cause was at work lifting him steadily. From the time he left Oxford he was acclaimed and backed by a small minority of pa............