influence on the
black-and-white of the Nineties--it will be seen from this that I
refrain from saying what I think of J. and his influence, but it is
considered almost as indiscreet, almost as bad form, to admit the
excellence or importance of one's husband's work as to pretend to any in
one's own.

If no drawings could have been less like Beardsley's than Phil May's
neither could two men have been more utterly unlike. Some friends of
Beardsley's believe that he was happiest where there was most noise,
most people, most show, which, however, was not my impression. But when
there was the noise of people about him, he might be relied upon to
contribute his share and to take part in whatever show was going. I
question if Phil May was happy at all unless in the midst of many people
and much noise, whether at home or abroad, but to their noise, anyway,
he had not the least desire to add. Beardsley was fond of talk, always
had something to say, was always eager to say it. All Phil May asked
was not to be expected to say anything, to be allowed to smile amiably
his dissent or approval. Had the rest of our company been of his mind in
the matter, it would not have been so much easier for us to start the
talk at once than to stop it at a reasonable hour, our Thursday nights
would not have been so deafening with talk that I do not yet understand
why the other tenants in the house did not unite in an indignant protest
to the landlord.

It was not laziness that kept him silent. He had not a touch of laziness
in his composition. His drawings look so simple that people thought they
were dashed off at odd moments. But over them he took the infinite pains
and time considered by the wise to be the true secret of genius. It may
be he expressed himself so well in lines he had no use for words. The
one indisputable fact is that he would do anything to escape talking. I
recall a night--not a Thursday night though he finished it in our
rooms--when he had been invited to lecture to a Woman's Club at the
Society of Arts. He appeared on the platform with a formidable-looking
MS. in his hand, but he put it down at once and spent his appointed hour
in making drawings on big sheets of paper arranged for an occasional
illustration. He had more to say than I ever heard him say anywhere,
when we got back to Buckingham Street. The MS. was all right, he assured
us, a capital lecture written for him by a friend, but it began "Far be
it from me" somet