The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (9.1896)

A Birthday Letter

From C£The Yellow Dwarf”

Mr. Editor :

I was vastly diverted (as no doubt were you) by the numerous
and various results that followed the appearance of my letter about
books and things in the October number of your Quarterly.
May we not reckon amongst these, for instance, the departure
of Mr. Frank Harris for South Africa, and the reorganisation by
Mr. William W. Astor of the entire staff of the Pall Mall
Gazette ? And I love to think it was with a view to soothing
the hurt I had inflicted upon a whole Tribe of Pressmen, that a
compassionate Government nominated a representative Pressman
to the post of Laureate.

I was diverted, too, by the numerous and various guesses that
were hazarded at my identity. Perhaps it will be kind if I
u make a statement” upon this subject. Roundly, then, one and
all the guessers were at fault. I am not Mr. Max Beerbohm,
nor Professor Saintsbury, nor Mr. Rider Haggard ; still less, if
possible, am I Mrs. Humphry Ward; and least of all, sir,
yourself. I’m reluctant to deprive you of the glory, but I mauna
tell a lee. I can’t deny—I wish to gracious I could—that you
tampered a little with my proofs, expunging choice passages,
appending footnotes, and even here and there inserting a comma

or