Yes! among books that charm, and give wings to the mind, will my days be spent. I shall be ever absorbing the things great men have written; with such experience I will charge my mind to the full. Nor will I try to give anything in return. Once, in the delusion that Art, loving the recluse, would make his life happy, I wrote a little for a yellow quarterly and had that succès de fiasco which is always given to a young writer of talent. But the stress of creation soon overwhelmed me. Only Art with a capital H gives any consolations to her henchmen. And I, who crave no knighthood, shall write no more. I shall write no more. Already I feel myself to be a trifle outmoded. I belong to the Beardsley period. Younger men, with months of activity before them, with fresher schemes and notions, with newer enthusiasm, have pressed forward since then. Cedo junioribus. Indeed, I stand aside with no regret. For to be outmoded is to be a classic, if one has written well. I have acceded to the hierarchy of good scribes and rather like my niche. Chicago, 1895. THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM A BIBLIOGRAPHY By John Lane PREFACE After some considerable experience in the field of bibliography I cannot plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies, here my labour has been still more herculean. It is impossible for one to compile a bibliography of a great man's works without making it in some sense a biography--and indeed, in the minds of not a few people, I have found a delusion that the one is identical with the other. Mr. Beerbohm, as will be seen from the page headed Personalia, was born in London, August 24, 1872. In searching the files of the Times I naturally looked for other remarkable occurrences on that date. There was only one worth recording. On the day upon which Mr. Beerbohm was born, there appeared in the first column of the Times, this announcement: 'On [Wednesday], the 21st August, at Brighton, the wife of V.P. Beardsley, Esq., of a son.' That the same week should have seen the advent in this world of two such notable reformers as Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm is a coincidence to which no antiquary has previously drawn attention. Is it possible to over-estimate the influence of these two men in the art and literature of the century?