A wind that blows out a little fire, he knew, plays bellows to a big one.

So long as people talked about him, he didn't much care what they said, and they certainly talked interminably about everything he wrote.
The inordinate popular success increased his self-confidence, and with time his assurance took on a touch of defiance.

The first startling sign of this gradual change was the publication in _Lippincott's Magazine_ of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It was attacked immediately in _The Daily Chronicle_, a liberal paper usually distinguished for a certain leaning in favour of artists and men of letters, as a "tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French _decadents_--a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction." Oscar as a matter of course replied and the tone of his reply is characteristic of his growth in self-assurance: he no longer dreads the imputation of viciousness; he challenges it: "It is poisonous, if you like; but you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we artists aim at." When Oscar republished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" in book form in April, 1891, he sent me a large paper copy and with the copy he wrote a little note, asking me to tell him what I thought of the book.

I got the volume and note early one morning and read the book until noon.

I then sent him a note by hand: "Other men," I wrote, "have given us wine; some claret, some burgundy, some Moselle; you are the first to give us pure champagne.