THE “PUERILIA” Of a truth, it was a strange little household in Buckingham Road, Brighton. In what to the world appeared an ordinary middle-class home, the small boy and girl were brought up by the gently bred and cultured mother in an intellectual hot-house that inevitably became a forcing-house to any intelligent child--and both children were uncannily intelligent. The little girl Mabel Beardsley was two or three years older than the boy Aubrey, fortunately for the lad as things turned out. The atmosphere of the little home was not precisely a healthy atmosphere for any child, least of all for a fragile wayward spirit. It is difficult to imagine the precocious sprite Aubrey poring over the exquisitely healthy and happy nursery rhymes of Randolph Caldecott which began to appear about the sixth or seventh year of Aubrey’s life--yet in his realm Randolph Caldecott is one of the greatest illustrators that England has brought forth. You may take it as a sure test of a sense of artistry and taste in the parents whether their children are given the art of Randolph Caldecott in the nursery or the somewhat empty artiness of Kate Greenaway. The Beardsleys were given Kate Greenaway, and the small Aubrey thus lost invaluable early lessons in drawing and in “seeing” character in line and form, and in the wholesome joy of country sights and sounds. A quiet and reserved child, the small Aubrey was early employing his pencil, and revealed an almost uncanny flair for music. Sent to a Kindergarten, the child did not take kindly to forced lessons, but showed eager delight in anything to do with music or drawing or decoration. The little fellow was but seven years old when, in 1879, his mother’s heart was anguished by the first terror of the threat of that fell disease which was to dog his short career and bring him down. He was sent to a preparatory school at Hurstpierpoint for a couple of years. Here the child seems to have made his chief impression on his little comrades and teachers by establishing his personal courage and an extreme reserve--which sounds as if the boy found himself in troubled waters. However the ugly symptoms of delicacy now showed marked threat of consumption; and a change had to be made. At nine years of age, in 1881, the child was taken to Epsom for a couple of years, when his family made a move that was to have a profound influence over his future.