At the age of 17, as he is represented in our first portrait, Mr. Farjeon was already an author, but unknown to fame, his productions, including a full-blown tragedy, "Hakem, the Slave," written when he was 14, being buried in a nest of three drawers by his bedside, which he kept always securely locked. When he was 30, at which age he is represented in our second portrait, he made, with remarkable success, his first essay, a Christmas story, "Shadows on the Snow," which was published in New Zealand, but afterwards, re-written and enlarged, in England. He followed this up with "Grif," and the success of this story and a letter he received from Charles Dickens determined his future career. His third portrait represents him shortly before his marriage with the daughter of Joseph Jefferson. It was after this union that he opened up a new vein by writing his finest novel, "Great Porter Square." Perhaps no living author has a stronger hold upon the public. [Illustration: _From a Photo. by_| AGE 30. |_C. Ferranti, Liverpool._] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by_| PRESENT DAY. |_The Stereoscopic Co._] HERR JOACHIM. BORN 1831. Joseph Joachim was born of Jewish parents at Kitsee, a small town near Presburg, Hungary, and while very young entered the Conservatory of Music at Vienna, where he studied under the celebrated teacher, Joseph Böhm. He was only twelve years old when his master declared that, as a violinist, he had nothing more to learn, and he appeared before a public audience at Leipzig with a success which placed his future great career beyond a doubt. He, however, studied with the utmost assiduity under the direction of Ferdinand David. At thirty-two, the age in which he is depicted in the first of our two portraits, he was Director of the Royal Concert-hall at Hanover, and was about to marry Amelia Weiss, one of the leading singers of her time, and then chief contralto at the Royal Opera in Hanover. He had already visited most of the European capitals, and was well known in London, then as now, for the extraordinary technical ability and mastery of his instrument which, combined with the feeling and the insight of a born musician, render him probably the greatest violinist who has ever lived, not even excepting Paganini. [Illustration: _From a Photo. by_| AGE 32. |_Mrs. Cameron._] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by_| PRESENT DAY. |_Messrs. Elliott & Fry._] ARTHUR W. PINERO. BORN 1855. The first portrait of Mr. Pinero shows him at the age of seven. The second portrait, taken at nineteen, marks an era in his life, for it was in that year he became an actor. At twenty-three he began, as he describes it, "to write little plays." His fourth portrait was taken in 1890, long before which he had firmly established his position as one of the few leading dramatists of the age. [Illustration: _From a Photo. by_| AGE 7. |_L. Schultz, Greenwich._] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by R. F. Barnes, New Cross._ AGE 23.]