thened the dislike of the ordinary English reader
for its author. And when the drama was translated into English and
published with the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, it was disparaged and
condemned by all the leaders of literary opinion. The colossal
popularity of the play, which Mr. Robert Ross proves so triumphantly,
came from Germany and Russia and is to be attributed in part to the
contempt educated Germans and Russians feel for the hypocritical
vagaries of English prudery. The illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley,
too, it must be admitted, were an additional offence to the ordinary
English reader, for they intensified the peculiar atmosphere of the
drama.

Oscar used to say that he invented Aubrey Beardsley; but the truth is,
it was Mr. Robert Ross who first introduced Aubrey to Oscar and
persuaded him to commission the "Salome" drawings which gave the
English edition its singular value. Strange to say, Oscar always hated
the illustrations and would not have the book in his house. His
dislike even extended to the artist, and as Aubrey Beardsley was of
easy and agreeable intercourse, the mutual repulsion deserves a word
of explanation.

Aubrey Beardsley's genius had taken London by storm. At seventeen or
eighteen this auburn-haired, blue-eyed, fragile looking youth had
reached maturity with his astounding talent, a talent which would have
given him position and wealth in any other country. In perfection of
line his drawings were superior to anything we possess. But the
curious thing about the boy was that he expressed the passions of
pride and lust and cruelty more intensely even than Rops, more
spontaneously than anyone who ever held pencil. Beardsley's precocity
was simply marvellous. He seemed to have an intuitive understanding
not only of his own art but of every art and craft, and it was some
time before one realised that he attained this miraculous virtuosity
by an absolute disdain for every other form of human endeavour. He
knew nothing of the great general or millionaire or man of science,
and he cared as little for them as for fishermen or 'bus-drivers. The
current of his talent ran narrow between stone banks, so to speak; it
was the bold assertion of it that interested Oscar.

One phase of Beardsley's extraordinary development may be recorded
here. When I first met him his letters, and even his talk sometimes,
were curiously youthful and immature, lacking altogether the personal
note of his drawings. As s