The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-07

Quoting "Marse Henry" we find tue "autobiographer'' saying:
 . "In my early life-as were, my salad days-I aspired to becoming what old Simon Cameron called one of those
 damned literary fellows and Thomas Carlyle less profanely described as "a leeterary celeebrityn But some malign fate always sat upon my ambitions in this regard. It was easy to become The
 National Gambler in Nasts cartoons. and yet easier The National Drunkard through the medium of the everlasting mint-julep joke; but the phantom of the laurel crown would never finger upon my. fair brow.
 Though I wrote verses for the early
 issues of IIarper's Weekly-happily no one can now prove them on me, for even at that jejune period I had the prudence ton use an anonym-the Harper's, luckily for me, declined to publish a volume of with me the great American novel. It was actually accepted by my ever too partial friend, Alexander Macmillan. But, rest his dear old soul he died, and his successors refused to SC thestranscendent merit of that performance, asview, which my own maturing sense of belles-lettres values subsequently, came to verify
 "when George Harvey arrived at the front 'ad 'opes. But, Lord, that cast iron man had never any boofSish bowels of coppassion-or political either. for that matter!-so that finally I gave un1fiction and resigned myself to the humble csse- gory of the crushed tragi- medians of literature, who inevitably drift into journalism.
 '"Thus my destiny has been casuef. A great man of letters quite thwarted, became 8 newspaper reporter-a volumi- nous space writer for the press--now and again an editor and managing edi. tor-untiI, when I~was nearly 30 years of age, hit. the Kentucky trail and set up for a journalist I did this, however with big J,' nursing for while some faint ambitions of statesmanship--even office--but in the end discarding every thing that might obstruct my entire IIc6QUHt TOT Cdiue llllO lne WOIIu all insurgent, or, as I have sometimes de- scribed myself in the Kentucky vernacu- lar. "a free nigger and not a slave nigger.'"
 Of his boyhood in Washington, Marse Henry describes that capital as follows; 'In those days a less attractive place ki. IA A. ka imagined. It was scattered over an ill., paved and half-filled oblong extending east and west from the capitol to the White House, and north apd south from the line of the Maryland hills to the Potomac river Private carriages were not numerous. Hackney coaches had to be especially or dered. The only public conveyance was a rickety old omnibus which, making hourly trips, piled it's lazy journey be- tween the navy yard and Georgetown. There was livery stable-Kimball's-- having stalls, as the sleeping apartments above came to be called, thus literally serving man %and beast. These stalls often lodged very distinguished people Kin1ball, the proprietor, a New Hamp- shire democrat of imposing appearance, was one of the last shingtonans to wear knee brooches and a ruffled shirt. He was great friend of my father and his place was resort of my childhood
 That childhood about the national caea- tai in the administration of his fathers friend, Franklin Pierce. was rich in ex- perience, which Colonel Watterson de- lightfully spirits from his memory. He says:
 "Another memory of those days has to