Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1914 — AS BOY SAW GREAT WRITER [ARTICLE]

AS BOY SAW GREAT WRITER

Brilliant English Author Likened by Observant American to Our Own Horace Greeley. In his new book, ‘Tn Thackeray’s London,” F. Hopkinson Smith says: “The first and only time I saw him (Thackeray) was in Baltimore when I was seventeen years old. “He and Mr. John P. Kennedy, a friend of my father, strolled one Sat-' ‘ urday afternoon into the Mercantile library, where we boys were reading. “ ‘Look!’ came from a tangle of legs and arma- bunched up in an adjoining easy chair, ‘that’s the Mr. Thackeray who ia lecturing here.’ "My glance followed a directing Hnger and rested'on a tall, rather ungraceful figure topped by a massive head framed about by a fringe of whitish hair, short fuzzy whiskers, crumplv cellar and black stock. Out of a pink face peered two sharp inquiring eyes, these framed again by the dark rims of a pair of heavy spectacles, which, from my point of sight, became two distinct dots in the round of the same pink face. The portrait of Horace Greeley widely published during his presidential campaign—the one all throat whiskers and spectacles —has always recalled to my mind this flesh glimpse of the great author whom I afterward learned to revere.”