The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-19
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

of boys. Some think it ought to be done before they reach their teens, while oth. CTS think it ought not even to be pressed during their college days.
 l
 I do not set my life up as a model for anyone to go by, for I have been SC interested in living that have never had time to stop and try and conform it to any settled rules. This is why I have been twitted for having done so many and been so many things.
 
 1 This is no effort to defend my course | or even to try and change the life of anyone else. T am also wholly fndif- ferent as to whether anyone thinks have made a success or a failure. I get my comfort from the fact that have lived, and not merely existed.
 I have always been interested in men, women and things, not in a professional way but just for the pleasure I got of | them; and for this reason I have never confined my acquaintanceship with any single clas. I joy in the fact that have dlWdyS HdQ iIIe1luS dHiOIlS lI6 ITCH dHQ the poor, the high and the low, the good and the bad, the respectable and those in disrepute.
 The older l grow the more charitable am towards my fellowman, and the ten- derer I am with the women who have been beaten in the game of living. I find that I am less intolerant of the opin- ion of others, and that I am not as cocksure as I once was. I suppose that this comes to every man who has passed his fiftieth milestone.
 have always liked to read confess sions of men and women, provided they were not merely posing and made with a purpose. Take those of Rousseau, the great Frenchman; or of Goethe, the greater German; or Amiel, the French man; and while I may not agree with their viewpoint of life, yet find it in- tensely interesting to get a glimpse of their inner life. Then, take the story of Marie Bashkirtseff, that is if you care to get peep into the private workings of the soul of a Russian declasse. No won der her book made a profound impress sion on Gladstone. I merely cite the above. Many others who have turned themselves inside out for the benefit of the public will come to mind
 
 am with Goethe who said, After all, it's the personal which interests us., This is why I prefer Pepys with his diary, to many a more ambitious his- toran. Boswell, in his life of Johnson, opened up a new chapter in biographical writing. I have no hesitancy in confess ing that I have been greatly interested in all the famous confessions from that of Saint Augustine to that of Oscar Wilde. Benvenuto Cellini was a great liar and a coward, but my, what an in- teresting memoir he gave to the world. It is the best picture we get of Italian life in his country. It may be necessary at times to hold one's nose as one reads his confessions and banish ones sense of decency, for the time being, and quit holding perfectly the balance of moral values, but withal he is such a charming scoundrel and brilliant artist that one cannot fail to be interested in his vl- lalnies. This is not to put premium on vice, on the other hand this is not a treatise on morality, but simply a friendly chat, believing that my readers are competent to think for themselves without it being required of me to point a moral as tell a tale
 
 It was no less a parsonage than one of England's strong governmental leaders who happens just at present to be in eclipse because he bore the brunt of the unhappy Seinn Fen rising in Ireland and went out of office, but long before he got into the business of making history he went on record, saying: T have found myself turning off the turnpike of his tory to loiter down the primrose paths of mems memoirs of themselves and their times" and this is what have been do- ing for 10 these many years I do not know that I am quite as skeptical as Au gustine Birrell when he cries out after having waded through many dusty tombs: ''One is often tempted of the devil to forswear the study of history altogether as the pursuit of the unknow- able.' He seemed to think that too often it was but the reading of sonorous lies in stout volumes.
 I had no idea of getting so literary when I sat down to write I merely in- tended to give some inside dope" on myself and on what the column I write daily means. It is expected to be gos- sipy, personal. reminiscent, and is not to be taken too seriously, and yet I hope to make it from time to time ring clear note on the issues of the day. I also bring into it many men and women who fit across the stage play their little part and pass on. l meet them. get a story out Of thntn. and give it to you.
 
 I began bs' saving I like people. It was Mrs. Wlggs of the Cabbage Patch fame. or some other philosopher and observer of life who said: Men ags. n1ossA interest," ing than stunps,' oF was it scabbages." I agree with the i6ea nave always cared more for folks than things. but knowing that there would be days when I could not find men and women to talk about in order to keep the column going I added to it, things"
 l reckon l am writing in this vein be- cause some of my good friends twitted kinds of people during the fair, but I was