Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1890 — Handy Man to Have Around. [ARTICLE]

Handy Man to Have Around.

Thackeray answered the accusation that Dumas did not write all his own works by asking: “Does not the chief cook have aides under him? Did not Rubens’ pupils paint on his canvases?” Then—it is in one of the most delightful passages of the always delightful “Roundabout Papers”—he declares that he himself would like a competent, respectable and rapid clerk, to whom he might say: “Mr. Jones, if you please, the archbishop must die this morning in about five pages. Turn to article ‘Dropsy’ (or what you will) in Encyclopaedia. Take care there are no medical blunders in his death. Group his daughters, physicians and chaplains round him. In Wales’ ‘London,’ letter B, third shelf, you will find an account of Lambeth and some prints of the place. Color it with local coloring. The daughter will come down and speak to her lover in his wherry at Lambetli stairs.” “Jones (an intelligent young;- man) examines the medical, historical, topographical books necessary; his. chief points out to him in Jeremy Taylor Col. London, mdclv.) a few remarks such as befit a dear old archbishop departing this life. When, I come-back to dress for dinner the archbishop is dead on my table in five pages; medicine, topography, theology, all right, and Jones has gone horn®,to> his family some hours.” This was Thackeray’s whimsical suggestion; but if he liarll ventured to adopt it himself, I fear we- should have been able to distinguish the *prentice hand from the fine, round sweep of the master.