His knowledge of life, art, and literature seemed the result of instinct rather than study; for no one has ever discovered where he found the time or opportunity for assimilating all he did. Gregarious and sociable by nature, he was amusingly secretive about his methods and times of work. Like other industrious men, he never pretended to be busy or pressed for time. He never denied his door to callers, nor refused to go anywhere on the plea of "work."
He disliked anyone being in the room when he was drawing, and hastily hid all his materials if a stranger entered the room. He would rarely exhibit an unfinished sketch, and carefully destroyed any he was not thoroughly satisfied with himself. He carried this sensitive spirit of selection and self-criticism rather far. Calling on friends who possessed primitives, he would destroy these early relics and leave a more mature and approved specimen of his art, or the _édition de luxe_ of some book he had illustrated. Some of us were so annoyed that we were eventually obliged to lock up all early examples. For though friends thus victimized were endowed with a more valuable acquisition, they had a natural sentiment and affection for the unsophisticated designs of his earlier years.
[Illustration: TAILPIECE _From "Salome"_]
His life, though many-sided and successful, was outwardly uneventful. In the early summer of 1892 he entered Professor Brown's night school at Westminster, but during the day continued his work at the Guardian Fire Insurance until August, when, by his sister's advice, he resigned his post. In December he acquainted with Mr Pennell, from whose encouragement and advice he reaped the fullest advantage. After commencing the decorations to the "Morte d'Arthur," he ceased to attend Professor Brown's classes. In February 1893 some of his drawings were first published in London in the Pall Mall Budget under the editorship of Mr Lewis Hind, but one of the most striking of his early designs appeared in a little college magazine entitled The Bee. When The Studio was started by Mr Charles Holme under the able direction of the late Gleeson-White, Beardsley designed the first cover and Mr Pennell contributed the well-known appreciation of the new artist.