Humor Cobb, Irvin S.: Roughing It De Luxe. v1. 06 Sep 2017

[GrannyGrump]

Roughing It De Luxe
A TRAVEL BOOK BY IRVIN S. COBB (1876–1944)

This book was first published in 1914. Text is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life + 70”� or less, and in the USA.

-----------------
From the pen of one of America’s most popular humorists of the first third of the 20th century, a travel book warranted to generate some giggles and grins. Cobb provides some unusual perspectives gleaned from his journeys through the American West.
* * * *
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, editor, and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky who relocated to New York in 1904 for the remainder of his life, writing for the New York World, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and other newspapers and magazines. Cobb wrote more than 300 short stories and 60 books (most of these being collections of his stories and articles). Some of his works were adapted for film.

An excerpt:

Spoiler:

I almost forgot to mention San Francisco’s chief product—Native Sons. A Native Son is one who has acquired special merit by being born in the state. You would think credit would be given to the subject’s parents, where it belongs; but, no—that is not the California way. It’s a great thing out there to be a Native Son. It counts in politics, and in society, and at the clubs.

And, after that, the next best thing is to be a Southerner, either by birth or descent. People who have Southern blood in their veins are very proud of it and can join a club on the strength of it; and some of them do a lot of talking about it. The definition is rather elastic—anybody whose ancestors worked on the Southern Pacific is eligible, I think.

Of course, there are a lot of real Southerners; but there are a whole lot more who—so it seemed to me—are giving remarkably realistic imitations of the type known in New York as the Professional Southerner. San Francisco excels in Southerners—the regular kind and the self-made kind, both.

I was out there too early in the year to meet the justly celebrated San Francisco flea. He’s a Native Son, too; but there isn’t so much bragging being done on his account.

-----------------
Text was obtained from gutenberg.org. Illustrations by John T. McCutcheon (1870–1949) have been omitted due to copyright restrictions. Transcription errors were corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted; chapter heads cross-linked to Table of Contents. Embedded font used for titling. .

-----------------
I hope that you enjoy this.
.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.