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 quae 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