and high-minded; but in England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press
cunningly contrived by the capitalist, the journalist or modern preacher is
turned into a venal voice, a soulless Cheapjack paid to puff his master's wares.
Clearly our "Professor of aesthetics and Critic of Art" is likely to have a
doleful time of it in nineteenth century London.
Oscar had already dipped into his little patrimony, as we have seen, and he
could not conceal from himself that he would soon have to live on what he could
earn--a few pounds a week. But then he was a poet and had boundless confidence
in his own ability. To the artist nature the present is everything; just for
to-day he resolved that he would live as he had always lived; so he travelled
first class to London and bought all the books and papers that could distract
him on the way: "Give me the luxuries," he used to say, "and anyone can have
the necessaries."
In the background of his mind there were serious misgivings. Long afterwards
he told me that his father's death and the smallness of his patrimony had been
a heavy blow to him. He encouraged himself, however, at the moment by dwelling
on his brother's comparative success and waved aside fears and doubts as
unworthy.
It is to his credit that at first he tried to cut down expenses and live
laborious days. He took a couple of furnished rooms in Salisbury Street off the
Strand, a very Grub Street for a man of fashion, and began to work at journalism
while getting together a book of poems for publication. His journalism at first
was anything but successful. It was his misfortune to appeal only to the best
heads and good heads are not numerous anywhere. His appeal, too, was still
academic and laboured. His brother Willie with his commoner sympathies appeared
to be better equipped for this work. But Oscar had from the first a certain
social success.
As soon as he reached London he stepped boldly into the limelight, going to
all "first nights" and taking the floor on all occasions. He was not only an
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