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 recognized. 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 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.