Life — June 20, 1907 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Hopkinson Smith RCHITECT, builder, painter, lec- turer, traveler, writer, raconteur, Bohemian, Jack of all trades, good at most trades, master of some trades, Hop- kinson Smith has added to the gayety of the world, the pleasure of his people, the knowledge of the nation, the contentment of his neivhbors, the genial current of his soul flowing and warming the tepid waters of contemporary literature like a Gulf Stream. Nature could not hide, nor art conceal him under either name; his gentle wit and kindly humor, his genial breadth and human ken, give him a wel- come wherever men and maids meet, for Hopkinson is an antidote for pessimism and Smith a dissipator of the blues. Smith is a universal genius in miniature, an Admirable Crichton of ephemeral let- ters, a literary patron saint of slippers, punch and bachelor wood-fires. He can add a story to a house or a book, paint with the skill of a fading belle, hold with his pen and charm with his tongue, and with versatility is neither prig nor bore. He is at home everywhere; from Vienna to V , Brittany to Baton Rouge, Paris to Peoria, Venice to Van- dalia, Mexico to Manayunk he is persona grata His one cardinal sin is dialect. is so good and he does it so well that he is an incentive at all times to the imitative dullard; yet only when bores’ heads are served on platters perennially will Hop Smith’s imitators cease from troubling. His ear Jacob Riis D =NMARK is famous for three things —great Danes, Hamlet and Jacob Riis. And the most useful of these is Jacob. Journalist and author, he has wrought well in the written word; yet not in books, but in deeds will his name endure. Not by his “works,” but by his works shall you know him, and future generations will rise up to call him blessed. In the making of an American he imparted the process of manufacture to the people of the tenements, and out of Mulberry Street no less than out of the White House has come encouragement in his battle with the Slum. As a school- master abroad on the East Side, the three R’s of his curriculum are Roosevelt, Re- form and Recreation Grounds. Jacob gone up the ladder rapidly since he landed on these shores. He has risen from police reporter to “New York's most useful citizen,” and in rising he has helped others to rise. Beetle: MR. BOOKWORM, DO YOU AGREE. WITH THIS WRITER WHEN HE SAYS THAT “READING MAKETH A FULL M “WELL, I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE PART OF IT; BUT, 1 KNOW THAT IT MAKETE A FULL BOOKWORM.” Wallace Irwin ALLACE IRWIN roped his Peg- asus in the foothills of San Fran- cisco, and rode it across the continent to New York, when the beast was barely bridle-wi It is a cayuse without a pedigree, but it bears its rider bravely, and has been known to gallop all day and far into the night. Unlike the thorough- breds affected by some poets, Mr. Irwin’s mount can fold its wings and travel on its feet at a terrific gait. It is entered in editors’ check-books as “the one best bet,” and its cheerful snort is a welcome sound in all sanctums sacred to Song. Its master is kind to animals, and tere are rumors that he means to come to earth for an excursion into prose. Meanwhile, the “Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum” have a larger circle of readers than Petrarch’s and Richard Watson Gilder’s. Scom not the sonnet. It has been known to fetch a dollar a line. Writing Terms Only “LIJAVE you ever met the President?” “Yes, but not intimately, He has never done anything more than call me a liar.” comicbooks.com