Came piffling through the Headley Bod,
And flippered as it flew....
PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF
from “The Yellow Book” Volume III
PAR LES DIEVX
JVMEAVX TOVS
LES MONSTRES
NE SONT PAS EN
AFRIQUE
As one turns over the pages of The Yellow Book today, it is a little difficult to recall the sensation it made at its birth. Indeed, London’s passions and whims, grown stale, are fantastic weeds in the sear and yellow leaf. But it was a sensation. And that sensation flung wide the doors of Society to Aubrey Beardsley. He enjoyed his fame with gusto. He revelled in it. And the ineffable and offensive conceit that it engendered in the lad was very excusable and understandable. He was lionised on every hand. He appeared everywhere and enjoyed every ray of the sun that shone upon him. And the good fortune that his fairy godmother granted to him in all his endeavours, was enhanced by an increase of health and strength that promised recovery from the hideous threat that had dogged his sleeping and waking. His musical childhood had taught him the value of publicity early—the whole of his youth had seen him pursuing it by every means and at every opportunity. When fame came to him he was proud of it and loved to bask in its radiance. At times he questioned it; and sometimes he even felt a little ashamed of it—and of his Jackals. But his vogue now took him to the “domino room” of the Café Royal as a Somebody—and he gloried in the hectic splendour of not having to be explained.
It was now roses, roses all the way for Aubrey Beardsley; yet even at the publishing of the second volume of The Yellow Book in July there was that which happened—had he had prophetic vision—that boded no good for the young fellow.
The deed of partnership between Elkin Mathews and John Lane fell in, and Elkin Mathews withdrew from the firm, leaving John Lane in sole possession of The Bodley Head—and The Yellow Book.
The parting of Elkin Mathews and John Lane seemed to bring to a head considerable feeling amongst the group of writers collected about The Bodley Head; this was to bear bitter fruit for Beardsley before a twelvemonth was out.