The sun., 1919-10-12

sponsbiIity was smoking cigarettes.
Twenty odd years later the memory
suggested to Mr.. Williams the figure
of the pathetic and sickly looking
Bibbs of the early chapters of THE
Turmoil"
II gave him six months to live"
wrote Mr.. Williams. He was Woe
fully gaunt, almost cadaverous, and
! had a concave chest. 1t always made
me feel as IL it had been sprung by
one of his spasmodic eXhalations of
cigarette smoke so that the breast
| bone hit the bacl bone and stuck there,
like a pair of collapsed bellows. That
was almost q quarter of century ago,
| but / may add that until comparative
ly modern times, six months has been
the usual limit allowed him, not only
by anxious friends. who, of course,
don't understand such things, but by
famous physicians in Paris, Rome and
New York, who, of course, have scien-
tific knowledge. And Harrington, be-
! ing the kindest, most imaginatively
; considerable person in the world, feels
| a real sense of shame and sorrow
| whenever he meets any of these IA
NOUS ScltUllSlS lace 10 ldCt' It VI lS
has a convex figure now, and can
stand longer hours of work than any
| member of the authors trade union"
1t was Jesse Lynch Williams who
made Harrington write his first short
story. If he had not written his first
short story how could he have written
his first novel? Indeed. in THE Cen
| tleman from Indiana" one of the
scenes and some of the minor charac-
! tiers were spun from that yarn. 1t
was called THE Better Man" or some-,
| thing OF the sort, and it was written
on the top floor of the south wing Of
old University Hall in competition for
a prize offered by editors of the
Nassau Literary Magazine. Said Mr..
Williams:
! II had told Harrington that
thought he could write, and that, yes,
really meant it. He did not seem to
think so, but I told him most kindly
/ that you never can tell till you try.
/ In short, was probably as patroniz-
ing as became my superior rank as a
! Senior and an editor. He was a
| Fresh-Junior and nobody in partic-
ular as yet. But that doesn't matter.
He wrote Il story and 1t was a good
| one. 1t won the competition and the
prize was SIS. Thus encouraged, he
has been writing ever since. In short.
/ began his career for him"
To coach the Responsibility about
college Life" was Mr. Williams's duty.
But the Responsibility did not need
coaching very long. He took to the
life as naturally as a bird to flying,
found his wings at once and scared
high. He became "Tark' to the Cam
pus, just as he has since become
| "Tark" to so many in the wider world.
| That Lit. prize was but one of many
| honors. He made the Glee Club and
the Triangle Club. He not only wrote,
but drew, became an editor of the Lat.
and the Tiger, too. 1t was quite I'M
precedented in those days to belong to
two editorial boards at once. There was
some conservative head shaking over
the matter But his design for the
| Tiger cover remained In active SER
vice until comparatively recent times.
"TaFk" I'm the Hours OF Ease.
Here is a picture from Mr.. Will
iams's memory of "Tark," in the hours
OF ease in the old Princeton days:
"A Saturday night. A crowd of us
in the room he now shared with Big
Murray. Somebody making a welsh
rarebit, or something equally indiges-
tible. Some one else stunning a
banjo. Two fellows roughhousipg on
the divan. The rest talking or josh
ing the usual Saturday night sort Of