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."