Could Morris but have drawn aside the curtain of the future a few narrow folds! Within a few days of that somewhat dishearting meeting of these two men, the young Beardsley was to be launching on a rival publication to the Kelmscott Press--he was to smash it to pieces and make a masterpiece of what the Kelmscott enthusiasm had never been able to lift above monotonous mechanism! The lad only had to brood awhile over a Kelmscott to beat it at every point--and Frederick Evans was about to give him the chance, and he was to beat it to a dull futility. Anything further removed from Beardsley’s vision and essence than mediævalism it would be hard to find; but when the problem was set him, he faced it; and it is a miracle that he made of it what he did. However, not a soul who had thus far seen his work, not one who was at Morris’s house that Sunday afternoon, could foresee it. Morris least of all. Morris was too self-centred to foresee what this lank young lad from an insurance office meant to himself and all for which he stood in book illustration. Vallance, for all his personal affection and loyalty to Morris, was disappointed in that Morris failed to be aroused to any interest whatsoever over the drawings in Beardsley’s portfolio. Morris went solemnly through the portfolio, thought little of the work, considered the features of the figures neither beautiful nor attractive, but probably trying to find _something_ to praise, at last said “I see you have a feeling for draperies, and,” he added fatuously, “I should advise you to cultivate it”--and so saying he dismissed the whole subject. The eager youth was bitterly disappointed; but it is only fair to Beardsley to say that he was wounded by being repulsed and “not liked,” rather than that he was wounded about his drawings. It was a delightful trait in the man, his life long, that he was far more anxious for people to be friendly with him than to care for his drawings--he had no personal feeling whatsoever against anyone for disliking his work. The youth left the premises of William Morris with a fixed determination never to go there again--and he could never be induced to go. Within a few months of Beardsley’s shutting the gates of Kelmscott House on himself for the first and the last time, Vallance was to lead another forlorn hope to Morris on Beardsley’s behalf; but the lad refused to go, and Vallance went alone--but that is another story. For even as Morris shut the gates on Beardsley’s endeavour, there was to come another who was to fling open to Beardsley the gates to a far wider realm and enable him to pluck the beard of William Morris in the doing--one John Dent, a publisher. This Formative Year of sheer Burne-Jonesesque mimicry was to end in a moment of intense emotion for the young city clerk. He was about to leave the city behind him for ever--desert the night-school at Westminster--burn his boats behind him--and launch on his destiny as an artist. V BEARDSLEY BECOMES AN ARTIST