uences which went to the moulding of Oscar
Wilde's talent, that of Whistler, in my opinion, was the most
important; Whistler taught him that men of genius stand apart and are
laws unto themselves; showed him, too, that all qualities--singularity
of appearance, wit, rudeness even, count doubly in a democracy. But
neither his own talent nor the bold self-assertion learned from
Whistler helped him to earn money; the conquest of London seemed
further off and more improbable than ever. Where Whistler had missed
the laurel how could he or indeed anyone be sure of winning?

A weaker professor of AEsthetics would have been discouraged by the
monetary and other difficulties of his position and would have lost
heart at the outset in front of the impenetrable blank wall of English
philistinism and contempt. But Oscar Wilde was conscious of great
ability and was driven by an inordinate vanity. Instead of diminishing
his pretensions in the face of opposition he increased them. He began
to go abroad in the evening in knee breeches and silk stockings
wearing strange flowers in his coat--green cornflowers and gilded
lilies--while talking about Baudelaire, whose name even was
unfamiliar, as a world poet, and proclaiming the strange creed that
"nothing succeeds like excess." Very soon his name came into
everyone's mouth; London talked of him and discussed him at a
thousand tea-tables. For one invitation he had received before, a
dozen now poured in; he became a celebrity.

Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere _poseur_; it still
seemed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be
beaten down under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class
indifference and disdain.

Some circumstances were in his favour. Though the artistic movement
inaugurated years before by the Pre-Raphaelites was still laughed at
and scorned by the many as a craze, a few had stood firm, and slowly
the steadfast minority had begun to sway the majority as is often the
case in democracies. Oscar Wilde profited by the victory of these
art-loving forerunners. Here and there among the indifferent public,
men were attracted by the artistic view of life and women by the
emotional intensity of the new creed. Oscar Wilde became the prophet
of an esoteric cult. But notoriety even did not solve the monetary
question, which grew more and more insistent. A dozen times he waved
it aside and went into debt rather than restrain himself. Somehow or
othe