Morris was not the only one who baffled the efforts of Vallance to get the young Beardsley a hearing. By John Lane, fantastically enough, he was also to be rejected! Beardsley was always full of vast schemes and plans; one of these at the moment was the illustrating of Meredith’s Shaving of Shagpat—a desire to which he returned and on which he harped again and again. Vallance, hoping that John Lane, a member of the firm of Elkin Mathews and John Lane, then new and unconventional publishers, would become the bridge to achievement, brought about a meeting between Beardsley and John Lane at a small gathering at Vallance’s rooms as Yuletide drew near. But John Lane was not impressed; and nothing came of it. It was rather an irony of fate that Beardsley, who resented this rejection by John Lane, for some reason, with considerable bitterness, was in a twelvemonth to be eagerly sought after by the same John Lane to their mutual success, increase in reputation, triumph, and prodigious advertisement.
However neither the frown of William Morris, nor the icy aloofness of Watts, nor the indifference of John Lane, could chill the ardour of the young Aubrey Beardsley. He was free. He had two big commissions. His health greatly improved. He was happy in his work. Having mastered the possibilities and the limitations of the Kelmscott book decoration, he concentrated on surpassing it. At once his line began to put on strength. And the Japanese convention tickled him hugely—here he could use his line without troubling about floor or ceiling or perspective in which to place his figures. He could relieve the monotony of the heavy Morte d’Arthur convention by drawing fantasies in this Japanesque vein for Bon Mots, both conventions rooted whimsically enough in Burne-Jonesesques. And so it came that his first half-year as an artist saw him pouring out work of a quality never before even hinted at as being latent in him.
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Such then was the state of affairs when, with the inevitable black portfolio containing work really worth looking at under his arm, the young fellow in his twenty-first year was to be led by Vallance into the inestimable good fortune of meeting a man who was to bring his achievement into the public eye and champion his interests at every hand his life long.
The year before the lad Beardsley left the Brighton Grammar School to enter upon a commercial career in the city, in 1887 there had left the city and entered upon a literary life, as subeditor of The Art Journal, Lewis C. Hind. Five years of such apprenticeship done, Hind had given up the magazine in 1892 in order to start a new art magazine for students. Hind had had a copy privately printed as a sort of “dummy,” which he showed to his friend and fellow-clubman John Lane, then on his part becoming a publisher. It so happened that a very astute and successful business-man in the Japanese trade called Charles Holme who lived at the Red House at Bexley Heath, the once home of William Morris, had an ambition to create an art magazine. John Lane, the friend of both men, brought them together—and in the December of 1892 the contract was signed between Charles Holme and Lewis Hind—and The Studio, as it was christened by Hind to Holme’s great satisfaction, began to take shape. Hind saw the commercial flair of Charles Holme as his best asset—Holme saw Hind in the editorial chair as his best asset.
So the new year of 1893 dawned. It was the habit of Lewis Hind to go of a Sunday afternoon to the tea-time gatherings of the literary and artistic friends of Wilfred and Alice Meynell at their house in Palace Court; and it was on one of these occasions, early in the January of 1893, that Aymer Vallance entered with a tall slender “hatchet-faced” pallid youth. Hind, weary of pictures and drawings over which he had been poring for weeks in his search for subjects for his new magazine, was listening peacefully to the music of Vernon Blackburn who was playing one of his own songs at the piano, when the stillness of the room was broken by the entry of the two new visitors. In an absent mood he suddenly became aware that Vallance had moved to his side with his young friend. He looked up at the youth who stood by Vallance’s elbow and became aware of a lanky figure with a big nose, and yellow hair plastered down in a “quiff” or fringe across his forehead much in the style of Phil May—a pallid silent young man, but self-confident, self-assured, alert and watchful—with the inevitable black portfolio under his arm; the insurance clerk, Aubrey Beardsley. Hind, disinclined for art babble, weary of undiscovered “geniuses” being foisted upon him, but melting under the hot enthusiasm of Vallance, at last asked the pale youth to show him his drawings. On looking through Beardsley’s portfolio, Hind at once decided that here at any rate was work of genius. Now let us remember that this sophisticated youth of the blasé air was not yet twenty-one. In that portfolio Hind tells us were the two frontispieces for Le Morte d’Arthur, the Siegfried Act II, the Birthday of Madame Cigale—Les Revenants de Musique—“Some Salome drawings”—with several chapter-headings and tailpieces for the Morte d’Arthur. Hind’s memory probably tricked him as to the Salome drawings; for, in refreshing his memory, likely as not, he looked at the first number of The Studio published three months later. Wilde’s Salome did not see print until February, a full month afterwards and was quite unknown.
However, Hind at once offered the pages of his new art venture, The Studio, to the delighted youth. What was more, he arranged that Beardsley should bring his drawings the next morning to The Studio offices. When he did so, Charles Holme was quick to support Hind; indeed, to encourage the youngster, he there and then bought the drawings themselves from the thrilled Aubrey.
Hind commissioned Joseph Pennell, as being one of the widest-read critics, to write the appreciation of the designs, and blazon Beardsley abroad—and whilst Pennell was frankly more than a little perplexed by all the enthusiasm poured into his ears, he undertook the job. But Hind, though he remained to the end the lad’s friend and greatly liked him, was not to be his editor after all. William Waldorf Astor, the millionaire, had bought the daily Pall Mall Gazette and the weekly Pall Mall Budget and was launching a new monthly to be called The Pall Mall Magazine. Lord Brownlow’s nephew, Harry Cust, appointed editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, asked Hind to become editor of the weekly Budget at a handsome salary; and Hind, thus having to look about of a sudden for someone to replace himself as editor of the new art magazine, about to be launched, found Gleeson White to take command of The Studio in his stead. But even as he set Gleeson White in the vacant editorial chair, Hind took Beardsley with him also to what was to be Hind’s three years editorship of the Pall Mall Budget, for which, unfortunately, the young fellow wrought little but such unmitigated trash as must have somewhat dumbfounded Hind.
So the first number of The Studio was to appear in the April of 1893 glorifying a wonderful youth—his name Aubrey Beardsley!
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