The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-17

pie country boy, as he declares he is, or a very complicated organism. | might at one stage of the encounter l have said that he is not only lnsratlat- inglv a boy but that he is soul (sounos like Nitszche and Shopenhauer. doesn Iit)? a soul. let us say, that was quite content to be born and brought up among the daisies, but later l came 10 the conclusion that it was merely veneer and that he is the biggest fraud aiVe when he declares that there's nothiils l like the eyes of a 'Rube, to see the soui | of a city. .,. l Now. understand, l don't mean by thls a political. a literary, or an official 1 fraud but just a nice, social sort or fraud-the kind that says "chase me; m worth catching" Oh, no; he IS really d most charming man, but unsophlstlcateo' Never of the city. ever!
 | Being face to face with some people doesn't mean anything even after you Ve read their perfectly stunning DOCKS aio short stories and things, but belns lace +o face with MT. Irwin s. Cobb means | pewilderment. | Tn the first place. he is remarkaoie r;eca of architecture; not Gothic. nor vel lcorinthian: probably we'd better classity y him with the Renaissance period I oon
 know what that is, but it sounds ike ne Ilooks). and that will do as well as dny- thing else. no.
 Hes overpowering: awe inspiring; no body YOU ever saw in all your Ire eVei Hooked like that and yet you ike nls looks: he's big and dark ana ms piaoh ahair and florid skin make ol nm o "oi | derful combination.
 1 p,,+ nbat,s the use of trying to explain him? There are certain kinds or arcni' lecture that to be appreciated must oe l seen. and Mir Cobb is that sort; ne IS uii- 1 explainable: he's just Irwin Cobb, pig ant l genuine: that's what wins you. lie ,. big and simple at the same tune; ne haS done himself justice , ..s 1 He'd just come in from New York; tireo bot dusty, and the Tutwiler foyer was ] crowded to capacity I'd never seen IT. win Cobb: I'd merely seen his pictures and read some of the things he s wrlttehi I Do YOU recall in one of his stories nov he tells about being at the country note and ordering the elevator to be sent up saving that when it starts nell peg1n U :. dress And all those wonderful bacf F Home" things and "Old Judge Priest
 and-we1l why enumerate? Only recog nized him the minute I laid my eyes oi him. in all that vast throng.
 l Tired as he was from travelling, Wltf the contemplation of delivering an ora I tion at the reunion, which ne dreaueu and declared he'd gotten "colo rect about it. so terribly that he couldn't see straight, he was gracious, charming, ahe
 willing to be talked to long enough lo' | an .interview' of some sort or other.
 We walked across the big foyer anc
 made ourselves comfortable; the reunion spirit was in the air; the music was play ing. the sponsors and the maids were flashing about, the flecks of gray iron the familiar Confederate uniforms Una, the Vetreans wore, and the red ana soie | of the bandmaster's costume rehilloe. . YOU of what you see on the stage Whlcf they describe in the third act as same as first'' on the programme.
 We rather hit it off from the first MT Cobb and I, much to my delight. ie was so nice and "chummy,' and not pl
 "uppish," and when I told him I adoree him. meaning, of course, his writings, hs
 laughed and said:
 Sounds like my wife"
 And this reunion oration?' askeo.
 "Don't mention it, I'm scared tc
 death," he confessed as naively as
 debutante "You see I'm here by com
 lnand; my forte is not orating; yot
 might call what I'm going to hand ou' Ian eruption, but never an oratlon. Yot lsee, it's this way, my father was con lfederate soldier, and so General founs lpaid me the compliment of appolntlns me on his staff; he commanded me te he present at the reunion in Birming. ham. so I shouldered arms and here am to answer present at the roll call.
 But a man who has faced the Ger mans and the French who has oons lduty as a war correspondent who ha' : spoken before kings and potentates need not try to make anybody behev. that he's afraid to make speech,
 
 : Manhattanized for that"
 That's just the point" said MT Cobb. "It's not that I cannot get Man ihattanized-it's that I won't I'm pis a country boy, off of a Kentucky farm | I'd much rather see summer croV
 than city; l still believe III iairle and the arguments in the grocery store I'd rather grab fistfull of raisin than fistfull of stars, thctugh your pretty near the one in the other why" I asked, If you love tn
 country, so why did you ever leave tn little town in which you were born?' Popular vote had something to a with it,' he replied, with that fasci hating quizzical smile of his. AIS after I had become the editor of tn | lPaducah Daily News, I thought it wa
 about time that I put Park Row wis to the whopping talented young salrpo that had flopped oMsr into the tank Q limmOrtalltleS. w ell, IlOppcu all made the darndest splash you eve
 saw-but, wait a second; cheek got m there, but cheek doesn't always pay maybe you can back it up and mayb Ilyou can't; I don't think anybody | born a genius; some are born suscep tible, that's all; writing is a thing tha some can learn quickly. some slowly Hand some not at all. Writing is tn bower to contrast; there's nothing lilx the eye of Rube' to see the soul c a city. What made O. Henry and Ere lHarte? Not their city eyes turned to
 ward the country, but their countr eyes turned toward the city. It pay as the saying goes it pays and if yo are country boy, you can't afford t forget it; I'm always trying to remem Der. I won't allow myself to becom Ilaccustomed to skyscrapers; they ar still gosh alarmed buildings, and when see an automobile I always say ther ain't no sich animal; yes"
 What on earth, being souther country boy. are you doing with a nam that sounds like the part in a melc
 drama that Leu Hailegen or Cyril Scot
 might be hlsxsssN asked
 wa a 4st4N5s.4.4 t,l4h IT. Goh