would rather be an Academician than an artist,' said Aubrey Beardsley
to me one day. 'It takes thirty-nine men to make an Academician, and
only one to make an artist.' In that sneer lay all his weakness and his
strength. Grave friends (in those days it was the fashion) talked to him
of 'Dame Nature.' '_Damn Nature_!' retorted Aubrey Beardsley, and pulled
down the blinds and worked by gaslight on the finest days. But he was a
real Englishman, who from his glass-house peppered the English public. No
Latin could have contrived his arabesque. The grotesques of Jerome Bosch
are positively pleasant company beside many of Beardsley's inventions.
Even in his odd little landscapes, with their twisted promontories
sloping seaward, he suggested mocking laughter; and the flowers of 'Under
the Hill' are cackling in the grass.

An essay, which Mr. Arthur Symons published in 1897, has always been
recognised as far the most sympathetic and introspective account of this
strange artist's work. It has been reissued, with additional
illustrations, by Messrs. Dent. Those who welcome it as one of the most
inspiring criticisms from an always inspired critic, will regret that
eight of the illustrations belong to the worst period of Beardsley's art.
Kelmscott dyspepsia following on a surfeit of Burne-Jones, belongs to the
pathology of style; it is a phase that should be produced by the
prosecution, not by the eloquent advocate for the defence. Moreover, I
do not believe Mr. Arthur Symons admires them any more than I do; he
never mentions them in his text. 'Le Debris d'un Poete,' the 'Coiffing,'
'Chopin's Third Ballad,' and those for _Salome_ would have sufficed. With
these omissions the monograph might have been smaller; but it would have
been more truly representative of Beardsley's genius and Mr. Arthur
Symons's taste.

At one time or another every one has been brilliant about Beardsley.
'Born Puck, he died Pierrot,' said Mr. MacColl in one of the superb
phrases with which he gibbets into posterity an art or an artist he
rather dislikes. 'The Fra Angelico of Satanism,' wrote Mr. Roger Fry of
an exhibition of the drawings. There seems hardly anything left even for
Mr. Arthur Symons to write. Long anterior to these particular fireworks,
however, his criticism is just as fresh as it was twelve years ago. I
believe it will always remain the terminal essay.

The preface has been revised, and I could have wished for some further
r