Beardsley read at St. Germain one of the few books by a living genius of which we have any record of his reading, Meredith’s Evan Harrington; it was about the time that the Mercure published in French the Essay on Comedy which started widespread interest in the works of Meredith.
By mid-June Beardsley was greatly cheered; “everyone in the hotel notices how much I have improved in the last few days”; but his sitting out in the forest was near done. A cold snap shrivelled him, and lowered his vitality; a hot wave raised his hopes, only to be chilled again; and then sleep deserted him. On the 2nd of July he made a journey into Paris to get further medical advice; he had been advised to make for the sea and it had appealed to him. His hopes were raised by the doctor’s confidence in the cure by good climates, and Beardsley decided on Dieppe. Egypt was urged upon him, but probably the means forbade.
ALI BABA IN THE WOOD
Thus, scarce a month after he had gone to St. Germain in high hopes, Beardsley on the 6th of July was ordered to Dieppe, whence he wrote of his arrival on the 12th of July at the Hotel Sandwich in the rue Halle au Blé. He was so favoured with splendid weather that he was out and about again; and he was reading and writing. Fritz Thaulow’s family welcomed him back. He scarcely dares to boast of his improved health, it has seemed to bring ill-luck so often. But best of all blessings, he was now able to work. It was in this August that he met Vincent O’Sullivan, the young writer. Here he spent his twenty-fifth birthday. Before the month was half through he was fretting to be back in Paris for the winter. September came in wet and cold. He found this Hotel rather exposed to the wind, and so was taken to more sheltered lodgings in the Hotel des Estrangers in the rue d’Aguado, hoping that Dieppe might still know a gentle September. Though the weather remained wet and cold, he kept well; but caution pointed to Paris. His London doctor came over to Dieppe on holiday, cheered him vastly with hopes of a complete recovery if he took care of himself, and advised Paris for the early winter. Beardsley, eager as he was for Paris, turned his back on Dieppe with a pang—he left many friends. However, late September saw him making for Paris with unfeigned joy, and settling in rooms at the Hotel Foyot in the rue Tournon near the Luxembourg Gardens.
His arrival in his beloved Paris found Beardsley suffering again from a chill that kept him to his room; but he was hopeful. The doctor considered him curable still; he might have not only several years of life before him “but perhaps even a long life.” But the scorching heat of the days of his arrival in Paris failed to shake him free of the chill. Still, the fine weather cheered him and he was able to be much out of doors. Good food and turpentine baths aided; and he was—reading the Memoirs of Casanova! But he had grown cautious; found that seeing many people tired him; and begs for some “happy and inspiring book.” But as October ran out, the doctors began to shake solemn heads—all the talk was henceforth of the South of France. “Every fresh person one meets has fresh places to suggest & fresh objections to the places we have already thought of. Yet I dare not linger late in Paris; but what a pity that I have to leave!” Biarritz was put aside on account of its Atlantic gales; Arcachon because pictures of it show it horribly “Bournemouthy.” The Sisters of the Sacré Cœur sent him a bottle of water from Lourdes. “Yet all the same I get dreadfully nervous, & stupidly worried about little things.” However, the doctors sternly forbade winter in Paris. November came in chilly, with fogs; and Beardsley felt it badly. The first week of November saw his mother taking him off southwards to the sun, and settling in the rooms at the Hotel Cosmopolitain at Mentone which was to be his last place of flitting.
Yet Beardsley left Paris feeling “better and stronger than I have ever been since my school days”; but the fogs that drove him forth made him write his last ominous message from the Paris that he loved so well: “If I don’t take a decided turn for the better now I shall go down hill rather quickly.”
At Mentone Beardsley felt happy enough. He liked the picturesque place. Free from hemorrhage, cheered by the sunshine, he rallied again and was rid of all pains in his lungs, was sleeping well, and eating well; was out almost all day; and people noticed the improvement in him, to his great glee. And he was busying himself with illustrations for Ben Jonson’s Volpone, and was keenly interested in a new venture by Smithers who proposed a successor to The Savoy which he wished to call The Peacock.
COVER DESIGN FOR “VOLPONE”