The New York herald., 1922-04-23
By ROBERT H. DAVIS.

spicuous figure as a contrib
utor of short stories and articles to
popular magazines, ventured the
following prediction in the New York
Sun over my signature:
He has already written twenty
times more than Bret Harte
turned out during his entire
career. He has made more people
laugh and written better short
stories. He has all of Harte's
subtle and delicate feeling, and
will, If he is spared, write better
novels about the people of to-day
than Bret Harte. with all his
genius and Imagination, wrote
around the Pioneers. / know Of
no single instance where one man
has shown such fecundity and
quality as Irwin Cobb has so far
evinced. and it is my opinion that
his complete works at fifty will
contain more good humor, more
good short stories, and at least
one bigger novel than the works
of any other. single contempora-
neous figure. The extraor-
binary thing about Cobb is that
he can turn burst of laughter
into funeral grafton. snicker
into a shudder and a smile into
a crime. He writes in octaves,
striking instinctively all the
chords of humor. tragedy. pathos
and romance with either hand.
There are critics and re-
viewers who do not entirely agree
with me concerning Cobb. But
they aoiH.
The role of the prophet is usually
a thankless one. In the present in
stance the writer of this review de-
rives his satisfaction from conscious
ness Of the fact that after eight
years he is entitled to membership
in the I-Told- You-So Club.
Cobb's first novel is not yet out.
but the general public may take it
from me that it is now being put in
type. AS regards short stories,
though. and articles both humorous
and serious. the output to date is
astonishing in quantity and aston
ishingly high in quality. One is
moved to wonder how and when the
man finds time to do as much work
as he has done in the ten years that
have elapsed since he quit being a
newspaper reporter to write for
magazines and book publishers. He
spends a year in Europe as war
correspondent. He spends two or
three years more going about the
country lecturing. He dabbles at
play writing-very unsuccessfully
still he dabbles. He does an amaz-
ing lot of travelling. He goes to a
hospital for an operation and goes
there again for serious illness. He
speaks at dinners. He lends his
name and his influence to various
public movements. He serves news
paper syndicates and he covers big
news assignments for the daily
papers. He loves to fish and to hunt
and to camp out, and does a lot of
all three, and in between times,
without apparently ever being rushed
or overworked, he somehow man
ages to achieve an output which.
measured by words. if by no other
standards. is perhaps as great as
that of any other writer in America.
Since the fall of 1912 he has had
published twenty-three books. big
and little. He has written enough
within this decade to make twice as
many more books, and all OF it has
been published in periodicals. He
carries on a continuous correspon-
dence with his friends all over the
world, writes a daily diary for his
daughter Elizabeth when they are
apart and otherwise communicates
with Tom, Dick and Harry and Boze
Bulger.
The present volume. "Sundry Ac-
counts" twenty-third In the Cob
bian schedule, is modelled after the
fashion followed by Cobb in compil-
ing the contents of at least three
other volumes Of his short stories
which have preceded 1t. Perhaps he