Show BEING YOURSELF by THOMAS ARKLE CLARK deao of men of I IlDO I 1 suppose we are all more or less imitators we bave our secret heroes whose accomplishments and particular methodi and man nera we try to reproduce in our play upon the stage of life and we have pointed out to us by our mothers and our wives examples v bleb t would be good for us to follow and models which we would do well to copy bill thompson was the which mother selected for my ideal of con duct and accomplishment if I 1 could only be as good a boy as bill was all would be well with me in this world and the next if I 1 could do kiy work as carefully and conscientiously as he dad success would renard my efforts and the way in which he helped mother nebout the house was gratify ins to all the neighbors bill and I 1 never got on well together I 1 disliked him from the start and profited very little I 1 am afraid from bis noble ex ample nancy has pointed out to me often aliat wonderful manners seli tailor has how careful he Is with his teeth and his finger nails they simply gilt ter with the high polish which con stant attention gives them and he Is one of the most thoughtful and tact ful men she has ever met he docan t make much of a bit with me in spite of bis slick appearance I 1 ran onto chester when I 1 was out west a few weeks ago and we got to talking nebout bis uncle who Is a professor in one of the eastern col leges now psychology or sociology or psychiatry be professes the uncle has been abroad some and studied for a while in new england oe was born in ludlow or fisher or some near by illinois village and ran across the prairies barefooted bare footed like the rest of us lie used as much slang and bad grammar as any other native born and flattened his as beautifully but he picked up a wonderful manner and exaggerated hew england alon somewhere and Is now no more like himself than Is like charlie chaplin hes a joke to any one who knew him when 1 e was a boy for his manner and his atlon and his assumed erudition are a disguise which tends to bide his real belt its a to try to be anyone else or to imitate anyone ise alie great men of the world no matter how little the world Is in which they do their work have been individual they have gone at things in their own particular way they have not tried to stifle own personality or to camouflage it by pretending ta be something that they are cot I 1 met jimmy danson last alay irish jimmy Is with a sense of humor lies been everywhere in the world since I 1 last saw him thirty years ago lies met great men in alt countries hes a great man himself rich and in fluent lal but hes still at heart the same hearty natural unaffected irish min I 1 knew nhan he was a lad hes 0 wf |