Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1920 — TIME MAKES LITTLE CHANGE [ARTICLE]

TIME MAKES LITTLE CHANGE

Booth Tarkington Relates Anecdote to Show How Characteristics Prevail to the End. Novelist Booth Tarkington was talking about the cowardly attack that a gang of Germans had made on a solitary French officer in the restaurant of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. "The Germans,” he said, “were unspeakable in the beginning, and they will be unspeakable to the end.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “People can’t change,” he said. “Henry Labouchere was born a fearless wit, and a fearless wit he died. A few, hours before his death, you know, Labouchere’s , nephew upset a tiny spirit lamp that was burning by the bedside. The dying man awoke out of M fitful doze and saw the miniature conflagration. “ ‘Flames?* he said. ‘Not yet, I think.’ “And he laughed quizzically and dozed again.”