Drifting, rudderless; the certainty of a living wage from The Bodley Head gone wholly from him; hounded again by the fell disease that shook his frail body, Beardsley’s wonderful creative force drove him to the making of a drawing which was shown to me in this early summer of 1895--and I awoke to the fact that a creative genius of the first rank in his realm had found himself and was about to give forth an original art of astounding power. It was the proof of the _Venus between Terminal Gods_. A little while later was to be seen the exquisite _Mirror of Love_, wrought just before the _Venus between Terminal Gods_. A new era had dawned for Aubrey Beardsley amidst the black gloom of his bitter sufferings and as bitter humiliation. [Illustration: TITLE-PAGE FROM “THE SAVOY” _NOS. 1 AND 2_] VIII THE GREAT PERIOD Mid-1895 to Yuletide 1896--Twenty-Three to Twenty-Four “THE SAVOY” and THE AQUATINTESQUES 1. “THE SAVOY” It was in a state of drift, of uncertainty as to the future and even the present, that Aubrey Beardsley, after a year of brilliant good fortune, thus suddenly found himself rudderless and at sea. That fickle and heartless arty public that fawned upon him and fought for his smile, that prided itself on “discovering” him and approving his art, these were the last folk in the world to trouble their heads or put hand in pocket in order that he might live and be free to achieve his art. The greater public was inimical and little likely to show sympathy, far less to help. But even as he drifted, uncertain whether to pursue his art or to venture into literature instead, there stepped out of the void a man who was to make Beardsley’s path straight and his wayfaring easy. For, at the very moment of his perplexities, on his twenty-third birthday, Aubrey Beardsley was on the eve of his supreme achievement. * * * * * In the summer of 1895, Arthur Symons, the poet and essayist, sought out Beardsley in his London rooms on a mission from as strange a providence as could have entered into Beardsley’s destiny--a man who proposed to found a new magazine, with Arthur Symons as literary editor and Beardsley as art editor. The mere choice of editors revealed this fellow’s consummate flair. His name was Leonard Smithers; and it was to this dandified fantastic adventurer that Beardsley was wholly to owe the great opportunity of his life to achieve his supreme master-work. Had it not been for Smithers it is absolutely certain that Aubrey Beardsley would have died with the full song that was within him unsung.