Wilde rapidly became the idol of smart London.

The play was an intellectual triumph. This time Oscar had not only won success
but had won also the suffrages of the best. Nearly all the journalist-critics
were against him and made themselves ridiculous by their brainless strictures;
"Truth" and "The Times", for example, were poisonously puritanic, but thinking
people came over to his side in a body. The halo of fame was about him, and the
incense of it in his nostrils made him more charming, more irresponsibly gay,
more genial-witty than ever. He was as one set upon a pinnacle with the
sunshine playing about him, lighting up his radiant eyes. All the while,
however, the foul mists from the underworld were wreathing about him, climbing
higher and higher.




CHAPTER X--THE FIRST MEETING WITH LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS



Thou hast led me like an heathen sacrifice, With music and with fatal pomp of
flowers, To my eternal ruin.--Webster's "The White Devil".

"Lady Windermere's Fan" was a success in every sense of the word, and during
its run London was at Oscar's feet. There were always a few doors closed to
him; but he could afford now to treat his critics with laughter, call them
fogies and old-fashioned and explain that they had not a decalogue but a
millelogue of sins forbidden and persons tabooed because it was easier to
condemn than to understand.