When a cockrel sits overlong upon the egg of the spontaneous repartee, his labour runs risk of betraying the strain to which he has put his untried skill in giving birth to gossamer or bringing forth the airy bladder of the scathing retort. To ape Whistler does not disprove descent from the monkeys. But since Mr. Beardsley displays anxiety to establish his sex, pray assure him that I eagerly accept his personal confession. Nor am I overwhelmed with his rollicking devilry in taking his morning bath--a pretty habit that will soon lose its startling thrill of novelty if he persist in it. Yours truly Hal Dane. July 3rd 1895 The young fellow, on receipt of all this, awoke with a start to the fact that the sword is a dangerous weapon wherewith to carve a way to advertisement--the other fellow may whip from the scabbard as deadly a weapon for wounds. Beardsley seems to have rushed off to Reichardt--before giving out my answer to the jackals who had shrieked over Beardsley’s “masterpiece”--on receipt of my letter and, fearful lest he might be too late, the young fellow anxiously pleaded that he might be allowed to withdraw his letter. Reichardt replied that it must depend on me. I then wrote to Reichardt that of course I had suspected that Beardsley’s childish assurance that “no one more than himself enjoys more thoroughly a personal remark” was a smile on the wry side of his mouth; but that I ought to confess that it had not been any intention of mine to lash _at him_ but at Harry Quilter--at the same time perhaps he would not take it amiss from me, since I was no prude, that I thought it a pity that Beardsley should fritter his exquisite gifts to the applause of questionable jackals and the hee-haw of parasites, when he should be giving all his powers to a high achievement such as it would be a source of artistic pride for him to look back upon in the years to come. It is only fair to add that from that moment, Beardsley trusted me, and that his works as they were about to be published were sent to me in advance for criticism. What is more, in writing to Reichardt about Beardsley, I had strongly urged the young fellow to rid his signature of the wretched “rustic lettering” he affected, and to employ plain block letters as being in keeping with the beauty of his line and design; and to show how free he was from resenting sincere advice, from this time, greatly to the enhancement of his design, Beardsley used plain block lettering for his signature. Reichardt told me that tears came into the young fellow’s eyes when he read out to him a passage in my letter in which I had told him that, at a gathering at Leighton’s house, Phil May had asked the President of the Royal Academy whether he thought that Hal Dane had not put it rather extravagantly when he wrote that Beardsley was one of the supreme masters of line who had ever lived; to which Leighton had solemnly replied, before a group