"It's very hard, Frank; of course I'll think over what you say. But really
Queensberry ought to be in a madhouse. He's too absurd," and in that spirit he
left me, outwardly self-confident. He might have remembered Chaucer's words:

Beware also to spurne again a nall;
Strive not as doeth a crocke with a wall;
Deme thy selfe that demest others dede,
And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.




CHAPTER XII--DANGER SIGNALS: THE CHALLENGE



These two years 1893-4 saw Oscar Wilde at the very zenith of success.
Thackeray, who always felt himself a monetary failure in comparison with
Dickens, calls success "one of the greatest of a great man's qualities," and
Oscar was not successful merely, he was triumphant. Not Sheridan the day after
his marriage, not Byron when he awoke to find himself famous, ever reached such
a pinnacle. His plays were bringing in so much that he could spend money like
water; he had won every sort of popularity; the gross applause of the many, and
the finer incense of the few who constitute the jury of Fame; his personal
popularity too was extraordinary; thousands admired him, many liked him; he
seemed to have everything that heart could desire and perfect health to boot.
Even his home life was without a cloud. Two stories which he told at this time
paint him. One was about his two boys, Vyvyan and Cyril.