en into the very darkness of life.
We find it particularly in three of his short stories entitled 'An
Occurrence Up a Side Street,' 'The Belled Buzzard,' and 'Fishhead.'
Nothing better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. One is
impressed not only with the beauty and simplicity of his prose, but with
the tremendous power of his tragic conceptions and his art in dealing with
terror. There appears to be no phase of human emotion beyond his pen.
Without an effort he rises from the level of actualities to the high plane
of boundless imagination, invoking laughter or tears at will.

"After his Louisville experience Cobb married and returned to Paducah to
be managing editor of The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat got on
his nerves and, after a comparison of the Paducah school of journalism
with the metropolitan brand, he turned his face (see Evening World
half-tone) in the direction of New York, buoyed up by the illusion that he
was needed there along with other reforms.

"He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of hope, and visited every
newspaper office in New York without receiving encouragement to call
again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of hall bedrooms on 57th
Street West and wrote a personal note to every city editor in New York,
setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual proportions of
the epistolographer. The next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job
from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun.

"At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference convened, and The Sun
sent the Paducah party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving at
Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye over the situation, discovered
that the story was already well covered by a large coterie of competent,
serious-minded young men, and went into action to write a few columns
daily on subjects having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. These
stories were written in the ebullition of youth, inspired by the ecstasy
which rises from the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge from the
well springs of spontaneity. There wasn't a single fact in the entire
series, and yet The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the United
States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y.

"At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to New York, to find that he
could have a job on any newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening
World, the half-tone engraving, which was the first