whether they lived or died will be a matter of indifference to everyone;
but my comedies and my stories and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' will be
known and read by millions, and even my unhappy fate will call forth
world-wide sympathy."
It was all true enough, and good to keep in mind; but even when Oscar
spoke of greater men than himself, he took the same attitude: his
self-esteem was extraordinary. He did not compare his work with that of
others; was not anxious to find his true place, as even Shakespeare was.
From the beginning, from youth on, he was convinced that he was a great
man and going to do great things. Many of us have the same belief and
are just as persuaded, but the belief is not ever present with us as it
was with Oscar, moulding all his actions. For instance, I remarked once
that his handwriting was unforgettable and characteristic. "I worked at
it," he said, "as a boy; I wanted a distinctive handwriting; it had to
be clear and beautiful and peculiar to me. At length I got it but it
took time and patience. I always wanted everything about me to be
distinctive," he added, smiling.
He was proud of his physical appearance, inordinately pleased with his
great height, vain of it even. "Height gives distinction," he declared,
and once even went so far as to say, "One can't picture Napoleon as
small; one thinks only of his magnificent head and forgets the little
podgy figure; it must have been a great nuisance to him: small men have
no dignity."
All this utterly unconscious of the fact that most tall men have no ever
present-sense of their height as an advantage. Yet on the whole one
agrees with Montaigne that height is the chief beauty of a man: it gives
presence.
Oscar never learned anything from criticism; he had a good deal of
personal dignity in spite of his amiability, and when one found fault
with his work, he would smile vaguely or change the subject as if it
didn't interest him.
Again and again I played on his self-esteem to get him to write; but
always met the same answer.
"Oh, Frank, it's impossible, impossible for me to work under these
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