Julius Beerbohm

[1] His half-sister Agnes Mary Beerbohm (1865–1949), who became Mrs Ralph Neville in 1884, was a friend of the artist Walter Sickert and modelled for him in his 1906 painting Fancy Dress.

[3][4] Beerbohm details a trek through the hostile terrain and overcomes snowstorms and mutiny, survives a flood and encounters ostrich hunters, puma, and swans.

When they finally arrived in Sandy Point, the local prison, along with its military guard, mutinied, got drunk, and took over the town, killing many of its citizens.

Throughout his eager, hunted life triumph and disaster followed one another in quick succession; but I never saw him – even when misfortunes were huddling on his back – otherwise than calm, perfectly accoutred and equipped, fastidious, fantastic, fascinating and debonair.

After their marriage, they lived in great splendour at Almond's Hotel, and I remember dinner parties where not the decoration but the tablecloth itself was fashioned of Parma violets, and where food and wine were of the nature of a Sybarite's feast.

Both brothers, while remembering with delight the beauty of the Thuringian land in spring and summer, recalled with shuddering dislike the iron system of their German school.

This latter was a short-lived venture for after paying the deposit on the hotel Beerbohm left Germany and totally forgot about the entire enterprise until reminded of it by his creditors.

Although facing financial ruin, he continued to keep cabs waiting for him all day at his door, and to attend supper parties where he would entertain the company by reciting one of his poems.

[6][10] As he lay dying in April 1906, "exhausted by a life of adventure and failure",[11] Beerbohm managed to maintain the strict standards of his dandyism.