During his years at Oxford (1890-1894), the precocious undergraduate published caricatures and essays in the
Strand and other periodicals. Beerbohm was very much the young dandy, dining with Oscar Wilde and his friends, attending the theater, music halls, his clubs, and occasional lectures. He met artists Aubrey Beardsley and William Rothenstein and was invited to contribute to the
Yellow Book, a fin-de-siècle aesthetic house organ. "The Pervasion of Rouge," an ironically precious history of artifice, duly appeared in the periodical's first issue, in April 1894. In the essay, Beerbohm refers to Cissy Loftus, a young music-hall performer. During the previous year he had written a number of letters to his friend Reggie Turner about his infatuation with Miss Loftus, his "Mistress Mere." The purely epistolary affair from afar with this "Small Saint" had led Beerbohm to look briefly with disgust at his life, and traces of the experience appear in his later fiction.
Beerbohm left Oxford without a degree. In 1895 he made a four-month tour of American cities with Herbert Beerbohm Tree's theatrical company. Beerbohm, hired as his half brother's secretary, was soon relieved of duties because he took too much time composing and polishing the business letters.
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