By the February he was benefited by the change, for he was “sketching out pictures to be finished later,” and is delighted with Boussod Valadon’s reproduction in gravure of his _Frontispiece_ for Theophile Gautier’s _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, for which he was now making the half-dozen beautiful line and wash drawings, in the style of the old aquatint-engravers. These wonderful drawings done--scant wonder that he vowed that Boussod Valadon should ever after reproduce his works!--he employed the same craftsmanship for the famous _Bookplate for Miss Custance_, later the wife of Lord Alfred Douglas, and he also designed the _Arbuscula_ for Gaston Vuillier’s _History of Dancing_. For sheer beauty of handling, these works reveal powers in Beardsley’s keeping and reach which make the silencing of them by death one of the most hideous tragedies in art. The music that they hold, the subtlety of emotional statement, and the sense of colour that suffuses them, raise Beardsley to the heights. It is a bewildering display of Beardsley’s artistic courage, impossible to exaggerate, that he should have created these blithe masterpieces, a dying man. Suddenly the shadows were filled with terrors again. The bleeding had almost entirely ceased from his lung when his liver started copious bleeding instead. It frightened the poor distressed man dreadfully, and made him too weak and nervous to face anything. A day or two afterwards he was laughing at his fears of yesterday. A burst of sunshine makes the world a bright place to live in; but he sits by the fire and dreads to go out. “At present my mind is divided between the fear of getting too far away from England, & the fear of not getting enough sunshine, or rather warmth near home.” But the doctors had evidently said more to Mrs. Beardsley than to her son, for his mother decided now and in future to be by Beardsley’s side. Almost the last day of February saw his doctor take him out to a concert--a great joy to the stricken man--and no harm done.