[Illustration]

When some years ago EDMUNDUS ED. MUNDI first introduced to London the
gentle art of Interviewing, the idea was in a general way a novelty
in this country. It "caught on," and achieved success. Some public men
affected, privately, not to like the extra publicity given to their
words and actions; but it was only an affectation, and in a general
way a great many suddenly found themselves dubbed "Celebrities,"
hall-marked as such by _The World_, and able therefore to hand
themselves down to posterity, in bound volumes containing this one
invaluable number as having been recognised by the world at large as
undoubted Celebrities, ignorance of whose existence would argue utter
social insignificance. So great was the _World's_ success in this
particular line, that at once there sprang up a host of imitators,
and the Celebrities were again tempted to make themselves still
more celebrated by having good-natured caricatures of themselves
made by "Age" and "Spy." After this, the deluge, of biographies,
autobiographies, interviewings, photographic realities, portraits
plain and coloured--many of them uncommonly plain, and some of them
wonderfully coloured,--until a Celebrity who has _not_ been done and
served up, with or without a plate, is a Celebrity indeed.

"Celebrities" have hitherto been valuable to the interviewer,
photographer, and proprietor of a Magazine in due proportion. Is it
not high time that the Celebrities themselves have a slice or two out
of the cake? If they consent to sit as models to the interviewer and
photographer, let them price their own time. The Baron offers a model
of correspondence on both sides, and, if his example is followed, up
goes the price of "Celebrities," and, consequently, of interviewed and
interviewers, there will be only a survival of the fittest.