And Even Now

This 1921 volume of essays by Max Beerbohm is pure pleasure. In it, among other things, he: investigates why a statue of King Umberto in Italy is cloaked; imagines the fate of an anonymous clergyman who dared to speak to Dr. Johnson and was cut to the quick; burns a novel by a woman who annoyed him; watches a boy build a house in the sand and then delight in its destruction; imagines a missing, vast portrait of Goethe and speculates on why it was never finished; and much else. What Beerbohm can do so well is to bring his erudition and felicitous writing style to bear on any number of subjects, and then spin out the piece with his creative imagination. There are a few misses here, primarily those essays in which he sets himself up as the schoolmaster, but much more often the arrows find their targets.