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Gold" is almost universally known, and his latest book, "The Land of Youth", has a quality that appeals strongly to all lovers of fantasy. The Macmillan Company, just as they had moved into their large marble building or is it granite? on Fifth Avenue, gave Mr. Stephens a dinner at which Professors Thorndike and Cross, Ernest Boyd, Padraic Colum, Don Marquis and others paid glowing and sincere tributes to the genius of this gay Irishman. I almost forgot the Irish Consul, who also seemed impressed by the entertainment. Mr. Stephens is a dark little man, with a face lined but jovial. He turns the ordinary events of life into little quips and oddities of humor. He makes of New York a place filled with romance and curious happenings, and his stories of trips on the street cars are almost as good as his recital of the parodies of Oliver Gogarty. Then came Michael Arlen, of "The Green Hat" and "These Charming People", preceded by legends which made him out to be a rather special young man, perhaps a rather snobbish young man. Mr. Arlen has had much publicity since his arrival. It is perhaps unnecessary for me to describe him here except to say that he is pleasant, kindly, witty, hardworking, and, moreover, modest. He is twenty eight years old and successful, and the way he carries his success might well be a model for many a young American author. There were many people in this town of quickly made and lost reputations ready to dislike Michael Arlen. He gave them in wit and sally as good as they sent, and they found themselves conquered not only by his verbal dexterity but by his friendliness. When he returns in the autumn to a house on Madison Avenue in which he plans to live next year, he will find warm friends. On

the eve of the publication of "The Painted Veil", W. Somerset Maugham sailed for England to see rehearsals of the English production of "Rain".

James Stephens

He had arrived from Mexico and South America, which he found too modernized to offer much material for writing. Mr. Maugham is a dignified and quiet gentleman whose wit is staggering when he chooses to employ it. In my opinion, "The Painted Veil" is his finest performance since "Of Human Bondage". Technically perfect and emotionally true, it seems to me one of the great short novels of our time. There are those who disagree; in fact, there is disagreement over many current novels. Some find "The Constant Nymph" less charming than do I. Others have said that "Soundings" by A. Hamilton Gibbs is sentimental trash, while still others consider it one of the best stories of the spring. At any rate, Mr. Maugham does not need to read his critics, because he is a great writer and he must know it. He is busy now on several plays. A story he tells of one of our great authorities on the drama is worth repeating.

This gentleman is a solemn authority, well known throughout academic and theatrical circles. He proceeded to invite Mr. Maugham, with much grandeur and praise, to luncheon. "I must be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Maugham", he said. "Many of your plays seem to me slight, and not entirely successful. However, I am glad to say that I can praise one of them without reservation as a great piece of dramatic composition. You should live on that alone." Mr. Maugham, naturally flattered and eager, asked which of his plays it was. "The Mollusc"", replied the reverend professor. "It was the most embarrassing moment of my life", Mr. Maugham told me. "What could I say? You see, I didn't write 'The Mollusc'; it was written by Hubert Henry Davies." Such is the life of an English novelist in this broad land.

There is one experience which is as delightful for a bachelor as a movie show: i.e., listening to his friends discuss their babies. Stephanie Jane Benét and Clare Eames Howard are two young misses of literary and artistic parents who came in for a great deal of comparison yesterday. Their fathers, usually vastly interested in discussions of theatrical and magazine enterprises, found themselves at one on the fact that babies look mighty angry when they have been in the world only a short time, yet are, after all, fine additions to the complexities of life. Now, I happen to know that Mr. Benét had just signed a contract for another novel, and that his new book of verse, "Poems and Legends", is in the presses; also that Mr. Howard was about to go to sign a contract for a new play to follow "They Knew What They Wanted"; but never a word of that did one hear over the coffee cups.

Well, after all, a play can be written any day, while only a certain number of children arrive in a lifetime; and the first is undoubtedly deserving of much attention. Having no flowers to send young Miss Howard this spring day, I call on my child familiar for aid; and since young Miss Benét is over a year old and I have never presented her with anything but a doll from whose head she promptly licked the paint, proving its cheapness, I must include her.

FOR STEPHANIE AND CLARE To poets' daughters one should bring The most exclusive things, Camellias and turquoises

And ivory teething rings.

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A series of really brilliant masked balls go on for six weeks. Then come street parades on floats at night lit by flaring torches carried by coons in Ku Klux robes who are constantly in motion doing fancy steps to the music of the bands. Fat bank presidents, leading doctors, prominent lawyers, and business men ride the floats under mask, disguised as courtiers, kings, queens, and varlets, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, and nondescript characters such as were never seen before. The whole city turns out to greet them and the maskers throw candy, beads, and trinkets to thousands of upturned faces and outstretched hands. The climax comes on Mardigras day. The city goes wild. Your friends, all under mask, load up on huge trucks early in the morning and go riding all over the city, dancing to the jazz band which always accompanies them, and stopping now and then at friends' houses to get up "steam". Half the populace dress themselves up in the most fantastic of costumes, even the children of three, and parade around on foot. The other half stands on the curb to watch them. Good nature, laughter, and waves of wild, unthinking, hectic joy sweep the crowds. Rex in royal robes and impressive whiskers (in real life a staid middle aged bank president) advances up the street perched 15 ft. in the air on the first float with 20 or 30 more following. He graciously bows and waves a rhinestoned sceptre to right and left. In pre-prohibition days he is known to have indulged so often at the various stops before the clubs that one of his low obeisances has carried him clean off the float in a terrible tumble onto the side walk by the grace of God uninjured.

The Druids follow with more floats, then various marching organizations such as the Jefferson City Buzzards some screamingly funny the thing goes on for hours and breaks up in groups, dancing, coonjinin', and skylarking on every corner.

Over in the back part of town the colored ape the whites. The King of the Zulus, black as night and dressed in a leopard skin, lands from a barge at the canal, and with his dusky queen parades at the head of his retainers. They end up at the "Bull Club" (the largest club for the American niggers). Here they have four bands, and a razor battle royal often takes place among the "Dukes" to determine which of the colored girls shall have the honor of being the maids".

Little bands of Negroes wander through the quarter dressed as red devils, tramps, skeletons; the women often dressed in ballet skirts of "nigger pink" with bodices cut away in the back down to the waists, showing great areas of bronze or briqué colored skin. One big buck, 6 ft. 4 at least and

beautifully built, staggered along in a strange, graceful way, perfectly insulated from the outside world by an overdose of "Sammy-kick-yo-Mammy" wine. He was garishly dressed as a Spanish "Valentino" and clutched firmly to his bosom a large silver cup which he had won in a dancing contest. A weird crew came romping after him, all evidently under the influence of "Sweet Lucy".

Prizes come and go, and many of them these days are for limericks and cross word puzzles. Do you ever win any? I have been so fortunate as to have a friend who won a cross word puzzle prize. Now young Robert Hillyer has won the prize offered by the "Garden Magazine and Home Builder" for the "best brief lyric of joyous mood with the Dahlia as its theme". All prizes should be awarded in a joyous mood, judged in a joyous mood, too, doubtless. These particular judges were Christopher Morley, John Erskine, and Frank Ernest Hill. It is said that nearly a thousand poems were submitted. Think of all that lyric inspiration arising from a mere dahlia. Mrs. W. E. Bingham won a prize of a year's subscription to THE BOOKMAN in the Ashland "Daily Press" (Wisconsin) "Book Thrills" contest. Her thrill was "Plumes". John Crowe Ransom, author of "Chills and Fever", was awarded the Caroline Senkler Prize for that volume as the best book of verse published by a southerner last season. This is a prize awarded through the famous Poetry Society of South Carolina. "The Horn Book", published four times a year by the Bookshop for Boys and Girls in Boston, announces hundred dollar prize for a good original play for children from 8 to 14 years of age. September the first is the date on which this contest closes and further particulars may be obtained by application to "The Play Contest", 270 Boylston Street, Boston. I have

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heard rumors of a large prize soon to be offered for a full length play by an American, but apparently the time is not quite ripe for a definite announcement. Prize plays often fail, but what's the difference? The prize money is secure, anyway, and a production is a good deal. It is great fun to see your own plays produced, even if they do fail.

"A Reader's Guide Book", by the May Lamberton Becker whose name is so well known to club women everywhere, is filled with good information for the rambler in literary ways. Countless persons all over the country have written her and asked her questions on one thing or another in connection with books, and she always replies. Here is a section in which you can find whether there is a novel about a musician, or about gypsies, or dogs, or what not.

Another section gives you sidelights on the drama. If you have ever met Mrs. Becker, you know that she keeps more facts stored in her head than any other woman alive. Also, she has that happy faculty which should be possessed by every good secretary, of being able to go quickly to exactly the right place to find whatever information she does not carry in her head. This is a gift possessed by all too few human beings. Occasionally you will find a great librarian who has it; there is one member of my own office force who is so gifted; and, of course, Mrs. Becker. Her book has just one fault, which is perhaps not her own the index is totally inadequate.

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Occasionally there comes out of the west a writer with a large frame and a simple soul, a man of the Lincoln type. Of such, apparently, is Roy Helton, although I have never met him. He has written in "The Early Adventures of Peacham Grew" the story of a boy

From "The Early Adventures of Peacham Grew"

with a delicate fancy, a fancy which something of really great importance. should develop in future books into His verses, too, are worth watching. More and more we shall develop this sort of writing in America, it is to be hoped. It has been done by a few among the natives: Henry Beston and, yes, Frank Baum; and in "Beggar on Horseback", George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Satire and fantasy are just now playing hand in hand. We are still a trifle afraid of allowing ourselves to indulge in the veriest day dreams. "Peacham Grew" is realism touched with fantasy, or perhaps vice versa. Occasionally Donald Ogden Stewart writes fantasy. More often, it comes There are others, but too few. It is from the winged pen of Don Marquis. not because the public is unwilling to read, it is more likely because we are afraid to look into our hearts and see the reality of our dreaming.

Stewart Edward White has departed for Africa, to discover some of its mysteries. Of his former trip he tells the following story: In 1913, just before he sailed, a friend gave him an opera hat to present to some native chief. Hats are greatly prized by the chiefs, and these marks of civilization will work

themselves back into the country far beyond where white men have been. Every once in a while you'll come across villages with the chief out to greet you in a derby. Mr. White took this opera hat along, all folded up in the top of a case, and when they made a camp for the night, he would put on the hat. Then he would put it carelessly on a chair, walk away, and returning after a while would sit on it with a plop. The natives would get quite excited and come up and motion that he had crushed the hat. Then White would snap it back into shape, much to the amazement and delight of the natives. They had never seen anything like it before. I wish that I had met him before he sailed. I should have liked to suggest that he introduce the crossword puzzle to Africa. (A Brazilian correspondent informs me that South America has succumbed.) Although the peak of the craze has passed here, steady interest does not diminish, and "The Cross Word Puzzle Magazine" flourishes. In one of the new volumes called "Brain Tests", which I found particularly engaging, is an “accuracy test". Alas, it is to be avoided by all persons with brains like my own! Ruth Hale writes an introduction for "The Complete Cross Word Puzzler", a volume for puzzle constructors. The "Bible Cross-Word Puzzle Book", by Paul J. Hoh, pastor of a church at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, has many uses, one of them being to test the real knowledge of the Bible on the part of those who claim to have read it through several times.

Things theatrical have been so dangerous to write about this winter, that first night gossip has irked me considerably. To attend a first night was likely to be an experience mixed with censorship and other vicarious thrills.

The dress rehearsal of the Actors' Theatre production of "The Wild Duck" was memorable, for although the performance lacked speed (a fault since remedied), it was yet one of the most impressive pieces of ensemble acting it has been my good fortune to see in America. As for the play, according to his temperament any playwright would either be inspired by it or driven to suicide. Theatrically, the Dutch Treat Club Show was the event of the year. Not that the crowd was distinguished and noisy; it was. David Belasco appeared in all his impresario impressivity. Meredith Nicholson told me politely, "We must uphold the higher ideals of literature." One could but agree. The editors of "The New Yorker", their lean noses alive for gossip, prowled through the halls. Tad Jones, the famous football man and coach, arose from the midst of a group of sporting writers that cannot be equaled and met, with amusement, the author of "They Knew What They Wanted". N. C. Wyeth, having been told that he was a direct descendant in art of Giotto, seemed pleased at the show. All this, however, did not matter, in the light of two sketches, one by Marc Connelly and the other by George S. Kaufman, and the acting abilities of that same Connelly and his fellow humorist, Robert Benchley. Benchley has already taken to the stage, and it seems only a question of time until Connelly does likewise. There is a quality about Marc's acting which suggests Charles Chaplin. As for Mr. Kaufman's sketch about the hotel fire, it was as good a piece of nonsense as I've ever seen. The show was given before the gentler sex this year at a special performance, and was therefore quite the most proper stag show one can imagine.

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