The lad came up to London, though intensely self-conscious and shy and sensitive to social rebuff, a bright, quick-witted, intelligent young fellow, lionised by his school, to find himself a somewhat solitary figure in the vast chill of this mighty city. In his first little Pimlico home in London, he had the affectionate and keenly appreciative, sympathetic, and hero-worshipping companionship of his devoted mother and sister. In this home Aubrey with his mother and sister was in an atmosphere that made the world outside quite unimportant, an atmosphere to which the youngster came eagerly at the end of his day’s drudgery in the city, and--with the loud bang of the hall-door--shut out that city for the rest of the evening. Brother and sister were happy in their own life. But it is that _Holywell Street_ drawing which unlocks the door. It is almost as vital as this home in Pimlico. In those days the dingy old ramshackle street better known as Book-Seller’s Row--that made an untidy backwater to the Strand between the churches of St. Mary le Strand and St. Clement Danes, now swept and garnished as Aldwych--was the haunt of all who loved old books. You trod on the toes of Prime Ministers or literary gods or intellectual riff-raff with equal absence of mind. But Holywell Street, with all its vicissitudes, its fantastic jumble of naughtinesses and unsavoury prosecutions--and its devotion to books--was nearing its theatric end. In many ways Holywell Street was a symbol of Beardsley. The young fellow spent every moment he could snatch from his city office in such fascinating haunts as these second-hand bookshops. We know that, on coming to London, Beardsley wrote a farce, “A Brown Study,” which was played at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton; and that before he was seventeen he had written the first act of a three-act comedy and a monologue called “A Race for Wealth.” A free afternoon would take him to the British Museum or the National Gallery to browse amongst antique art. His time for creative work could have been but scant, and his delicate health probably compelled a certain amount of caution on his behalf from his anxious sister and mother. But at nine every evening he really began to live; and he formed the habit of working at night by consequence. We may take it that Beardsley’s first year in London was filled with eager pursuit of literature and art rather than with any sustained creative effort. And he would make endless sacrifices to hear good music, which all cut into his time. Nor had he yet even dreamed of pursuing an artistic career.