Mr. Beach Needham, who shared the tragic fate of Lieutenant
Warneford, was an American journalist, or, rather, magazine writer, of unusual insight and brilliancy. His special work lay in making studies, or, rather, elaborate verbal portraits, of great men, portraits which, as a rule, were combined with personal interviews, but in which the portraiture side of the" story" was more important than the actual words of the person interviewed. Mr. Needham would often study his subject for a month or two, and get almost as many sittings as a painter. His style was full of what we may call latent brilliancy. It seemed specially easy, natural, and unconventional, but to those who studied it carefully it suggested the French proverb : "How great the art required to get back to Nature." His studies of men had something in them of the Itontgen-ray "shadow- graph?' They showed the osseous structure below, and neglected the mere fleshy coverings. Mr. Needham was a man of many friends both here and in America, and the regret felt at his untimely death has been very deep.
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