New-York tribune., 1921-06-26


and seeing before you nothing but
something delicate and precious which
! you cannot bear to imagine shattered,
wrecked and destroyed.
We'll, he punched the bag. He
punched it ianguidl these public
workouts are forced ON him and he
does his real preparation in private
with little bursts during which it
hummed l said languidly; | should
have said dreamily. His eyes seemed to
be far away, and once in a while he
smiled as though to some pleasing
thought. The smile, as matter Of
TACT, was for US; smile at the idea
we thought we were seeing the real
work Of the real Carpenter. But it
added to the sense Of immateriality--
of ity-which already possessed
Then he boxed, in an outside ring
mounted in the field behind the barn.
II suppose everything conspired9 to
give US the effect--one Of unreality,
the effect one meets in dream. For
one thing the day was beautiful, and
beautiful days give sense of hush.
Birds were singing, but the human
voices only murmured. Then. up there
on the canvas, that delicate statue came
to life and color, and drained of weight,
slid, sprang, lunged, parried.
Hint OF What Made Him Great
1t was the strangest thing. | have
already used the word immaterial; |
must use it again. The action was so
slngularly filtered Of that which usually
accompanies its like. There was no
blood, no spume, mo foaming; there
was hardly any sweat. Somehow, ! can
hardly remember the thump of glove
upon body. He was working, of course,
severely under restraint. A few times
only. like che sparkle of rapier ap-
pearing abruptly in the bosom Of q
night profoundly dark, one Of his
blows, darting out Of his stalling, gave
Us hint of that which has made his
greatness and will perhaps make him
greater. His whole body, then, hurtled
through the air behind the flying fist
But in spite Of this the performance
oldtime jousts. Whenever one of his
blows, not retarded in time, struck
a sparring partner too hard he would
givesa little "oh!" Of dismay, followed
by Pardon, mon vieux."
His first opponent was a lightweight,
but after that he boxed with Joe Jean
Eette, a veteran heavyweight, big
negro, burly and impressive, of the
rare aquiline type, who, in his red
tights, looked like the gladiator of
some Assyrian king.
The entrance of Jeannette, by the
way, had given me another fash upon
Carpenters character. When Jean
nette came into the ring Carpenter
was against the ropes, back to him,
while the niotherly Deschamps exam
rentheses | may say that Carpenter
who has fought since the age Of eleven,
who had been successively bantam,
feather, light, middle, light-heavy and
heavy champion Of Europe and light
heavy champion Of the world, shows
not scar or mark on his face--a face
that seems almost too delicate for a
mans. Well, anyway, Carpenter had
his back turned to Jeanette and his
attention on Deschamps when Jean
4 nette approached.
:. Carpenter, without turning, felt
him behind him. Reaching behind
without looking, he seized in his hand
the. negro's big paw and gave it a
seen anything so gracefully done, and
so graciously-that discreet greeting
Of an old friend--black man though
he was, and pariah.
Later in the afternoon I saw another
4 gesture that gave me the same inward
glow. That was when, passing out, Car
pentier saw one of our war veterans
who had lost both legs in the Argonne
and had come to see the workout
Of the French ex-aviator, borne there In
a. chair. Carpenter obliqued toward
aim, his hand went out and seized the
hand of the gloriously crippled youth
This time he held the hand in both of
his Tor just moment before he passed
Z on. And again, perfectly naturally, as
though by sheer instinct, he had man
aged to express something very nice
and to express it perfectly.
I Epitome of Frailty Personified
To go back to the boxing. First he
boxed with light weight, then he
boxed with Joe Jeannette, the heavy
weight negro, big, powerful black man
Against that great black hulk his body
sllhouetted itself finer and more imma-
terial than ever. And we looked on
stupefied, thinking: "My God, he can't
light Dempsey. He couldn't fight ANY
boDY. Why, almost anybody could get
We thought those things irresistibly
IN spite OF the facts we knew-the rec
ORD Of his fights, of his knock -outs-in
Of his blows. "Go on" we'd say to
ourselves, The Knocked out Levinsky
and Wells and Beckett. He weighs
172 pounds, which is SOMETHING,
even If it isn't Dempsey's 100" We'd
say that, we'd say what was fact
but we'd say it like mere words: we
couldn't believe it.
Appearance was stronger than statis-
tics, And soon, once more, irresistibly,
we'd be thinking, as we watched the
unreal. the wraith-like performance !:
NY God, Dempsey will kill him; ANY
HODY could beat him; why, it seems
to me that could get up there now
The last is mine own reaction. But
asked the two friends that were with
me, and they both admitted to the same
illusion Each one told me that to him
also, several times during the after
noon, had come the phrase: "Why, it
seems to me that / could get up there
ncN, IN that ring and"--
Each also confded that ha had left
the phrase unfinished. But each ad
mitted that he had left it unfinished
with effort, and only through sheer
imodesty.
When everything was over and the
gates had clicked behind us, and the
i ~ ~ -~.- a.