"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