[6] Ross says in his Aubrey Beardsley, p. 45, one of the events which contributed ‘to give Beardsley a fresh impetus and stimulate his method of expression’ about the Salomé time was ‘a series of visits to the collection of Greek vases in the British Museum (prompted by an essay of Mr. D. S. MacColl).’
We are, however, more interested here with the literary side of his work, which divides itself into poetry and prose. As a poet Beardsley has been accused of over-cleverness. Whatever that criticism means I do not know. Probably it implies some similar reflection to the statement that a dandy is over-dressed. I cannot, however, discover any such affectation in, for example, that charming poem, The Three Musicians, which recounts how the soprano ‘lightly frocked,’ the slim boy who dies ‘for réclame and recall at Paris,’ and the Polish pianist, pleased with their thoughts, their breakfast, and the summer day, wend their way ‘along the path that skirts the wood’:
The Polish genius lags behind,
And, with some poppies in his hand,
Picks out the strings and wood and wind
Of an imaginary band.
Enchanted that for once his men obey his beat and understand.
The charming cantatrice reclines
And rests a moment where she sees
Her château’s roof that hotly shines
Amid the dusky summer trees,
And fans herself, half shuts her eyes, and smooths the frock about her knees.
The gracious boy is at her feet,
And weighs his courage with his chance;
His fears soon melt in noonday heat.
The tourist gives a furious glance,
Red as his guide-book, moves on, and offers up a prayer for France.
In The Ballad of a Barber, again, there is nothing but a trill of song in limpid verse. How Carrousel, the barber of Meridian Street, who could ‘curl wit into the dullest face,’ became fou of the thirteen-year-old King’s daughter, so that
His fingers lost their cunning quite,
His ivory combs obeyed no more;
is a typical ninety jeu d’esprit, only much better done than the average one. With the fewest words Beardsley can sketch a scene or character, as he used the fewest of lines in his drawings. This is even better exemplified in his prose. Time and again a single sentence of Under the Hill gives us a complete picture:
Sporion was a tall, depraved young man, with a slight stoop, a troubled walk, an oval, impassible face, with its olive skin drawn lightly over the bone, strong, scarlet lips, long Japanese eyes, and a great gilt toupet.