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 stick with the more ignorant and the populace, though men of wisdom may smile at it; and the reputation won with many will amply countervail the disdain of a few....

And surely no small number of those who are of solid nature, and who, from the want of this ventosity, cannot spread all sail in pursuit of their own honour, suffer some prejudice and lose dignity by their moderation." Many of Oscar's letters to the papers in these years were amusing, some of them full of humour.

For example, when he was asked to give a list of the hundred best books, as Lord Avebury and other mediocrities had done, he wrote saying that "he could not give a list of the hundred best books, as he had only written five." 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.