“Along with his prolonged childhood Max kept the child’s confidence in the possibility of happiness. Unlike so many sensitive artists, he suffered no premature disillusionment, was not brought up against the brutality and ugliness of life before he was old enough to stand it. In consequence, he did not suffer from any of those inner wounds and hidden resentments that lead people unhappy in childhood to set up later as outsiders and rebels. Thirteen years of happiness had given him a basic faith in life which was to be like a sort of spiritual bank balance on which he could always draw for reassurance when things went wrong.”
David Cecil, Max: A Biography of Max Beerbohm