"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 quæ 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 passionate
admirers whom I have called his fuglemen. These admirers formed the
constant factor in his progress from social height to height. For the
most part they were persons usually called "sexual inverts," who
looked to the brilliancy of his intellect to gild their esoteric
indulgence. This class in England is almost wholly recruited from the
aristocracy and the upper middle-class that apes the "smart set." It
is an inevitable product of the English boarding school and University
system; indeed one of the most characteristic products. I shall
probably bring upon myself a host of enemies by this assertion, but it
has been weighed and must stand. Fielding has already put the same
view on record: he says:
"A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the
calamities which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are
the nurseries of all vice and immorality. All the wicked
fellows whom I remember at the University were bred at
them...."
If boarding-school life with its close intimacies between boys from
twelve to eighteen years of age were understood by English mothers, it
is safe to say that every boarding-house in every school would
disappear in a single night, and Eton, Harrow, Winchester and the rest
would be turned into day-schools.
Those who have learned bad habits at school or in the 'Varsity are
inclined to continue the practices in later life. Naturally enough
these men are usually distinguished by a certain artistic sympathy,
and often by most attractive, intellectual qualities. As a rule the
epicene have soft voices and ingratiating manners, and are bold enough
to make a direct appeal to the heart and emotions; they are
considered the very cream of London society.
These admirers and supporters praised and defended Oscar Wilde from
the beginning with the persistence and courage of men who if they
don't hang together are likely to hang separately. After his trial and
condemnation _The Daily Telegraph_ spoke with contempt of these
"decadents" and "æsthetes" who, it asserted, "could be numbered in
London society on the fingers of one hand"; but even _The Daily
Telegraph_ must have known that in the "smart set" alone there are
hundreds of these acolytes whose intellectual and artistic culture
gives them an importance out of all proportion to their number. It was
the passionate support of these men in the first place which made
Oscar Wilde notorious and successful.
This fact may well give pause to the thoughtful reader. In the middle
ages, when birth and position had a disproportionate power in life,
the Catholic Church supplied a certain democratic corrective to the
inequality of social conditions. It was a sort of "Jacob's Ladder"
leading from the lowest strata of society to the very heavens and
offering to ingenuous, youthful talent a career of infinite hope and
unlimited ambition. This great power of the Roman Church in the
middle-ages may well be compared to the influence exerted by those
whom I have designated as Oscar Wilde's fuglemen in the England of
today. The easiest way to success in London society is to be notorious
in this sense. Whatever career one may have chosen, however humble
one's birth, one is then certain of finding distinguished friends and
impassioned advocates. If you happen to be in the army and unmarried,
you are declared to be a strategist like Cæsar, or an organizer like
Moltke; if you are an artist, instead of having your faults proclaimed
and your failings scourged, your qualifications are eulogised and you
find yourself compared to Michel Angelo or Titian! I would not
willingly exaggerate here; but I could easily give dozens of instances
to prove that sexual perversion is a "Jacob's Ladder" to most forms of
success in our time in London.
It seems a curious effect of the great compensatory balance of things
that a masculine rude people like the English, who love nothing so
much as adventures and warlike achievements, should allow themselves
to be steered in ordinary times by epicene æsthetes. But no one who
knows the facts will deny that these men are prodigiously influential
in London in all artistic and literary matters, and it was their
constant passionate support which lifted Oscar Wilde so quickly to
eminence.
From the beginning they fought for him. He was regarded as a leader
among them when still at Oxford. Yet his early writings show no trace
of such a prepossession; they are wholly void of offence, without even
a suggestion of coarseness, as pure indeed as his talk. Nevertheless,
as soon as his name came up among men in town, the accusation of
abnormal viciousness was either made or hinted. Everyone spoke as if
there were no doubt about his tastes, and this in spite of the
habitual reticence of Englishmen. I could not understand how the
imputation came to be so bold and universal; how so shameful a
calumny, as I regarded it, was so firmly established in men's minds.
Again and again I protested against the injustice, demanded proofs;
but was met only by shrugs and pitying glances as if my prejudice must
indeed be invincible if I needed evidence of the obvious.
I have since been assured, on what should be excellent authority, that
the evil reputation which attached to Oscar Wilde in those early years
in London was completely undeserved. I, too, must say that in the
first period of our friendship, I never noticed anything that could
give colour even to suspicion of him; but the belief in his abnormal
tastes was widespread and dated from his life in Oxford.
From about 1886-7 on, however, there was a notable change in Oscar
Wilde's manners and mode of life. He had been married a couple of
years, two children had been born to him; yet instead of settling down
he appeared suddenly to have become wilder. In 1887 he accepted the
editorship of a lady's paper, _The Woman's World_, and was always
mocking at the selection of himself as the "fittest" for such a post:
he had grown noticeably bolder. I told myself that an assured income
and position give confidence; but at bottom a doubt began to form in
me. It can't be denied that from 1887-8 on, incidents occurred from
time to time which kept the suspicion of him alive, and indeed pointed
and strengthened it. I shall have to deal now with some of the more
important of these occurrences.