Of all the personal influences 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 Æsthetics 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.