BOOKS giving me books, while as a matter of fact I have hinted over and over again that there is a certain volume I covet. It is never forthcoming. F. P. A. talks about stockings, and he is immediately flooded with all shapes and sizes. Of course books do come in for review; but the book, no one has ever sent me that! My friends give me neckties, handkerchiefs, even suspenders, but nary a book and I do really like books! More power to the Publishers' Association. I hope their campaign goes on and on until every man, woman and child in America owns a book. Why not a campaign to have hotels put good books beside the Bibles in every room? That's a real idea. Surely the great hotel managements could be made to feel that it's as important for Americans to be cultured, or nearly so, as to be Bible conscious. How about it? Mary Johnston was in New York City recently on her way to Scotland. She says that life holds nothing better for her than to sit in a square in Edin MAKE the home burgh and watch the people go by. Miss exquisite in book manufacture or the entertaining in travel books should miss. The Publishers' Association showed great acumen in securing him to do their poster. I have been following their advice in giving books to brides, because so many of my friends have been getting married that it has been quite impossible to give anything else; and then, what could be better anyway? I made one great error, when I presented a certain friend with an autographed Michael Arlen. Up to that time, it seems, she had not been allowed to read the gentleman. Just why, I'm sure I don't know. Anyway, her husband agreed with me that it was time she did! No one ever thinks of Miss Johnston is a soft voiced, gracious lady who is much puzzled by modern literary New York City. She has written some of the great best sellers of our time, and good books they are too. Her later books have been magnificent. The not appreciated "Sweet Rocket" was one of the best of them. Glasgow and Miss Johnston, both of the south, strike me as being somewhat alike. Artists, both of them, and interested in writing as artists. On a second reading of two books recently, I appreciated them much more than I I did at first. They were "Barren Ground" and "Drums", two finely spun tales, and both from the south. Yes, Chicago must soon give way to the country below the famous line as literary arbiter of the nation. James Stephens has only just returned to his native pixies and revolutions. Before he went be talked one day to the children at the New York Public Library. I could not go to hear him; but Hervey Allen tells me that it was a fine occasion, for he talked to them simply, and yet as one man to another, with no patronizing tones in his voice at all. His publishers have just issued a selected edition of his poems, with some new things. They have called it "A Poetry Recital". A splendid book it is! Could any poem be lovelier than this stanza: All, all alone, and all without a part There have been many novelty books upon the market since the cross word puzzles usurped sanity last winter. Among them, the limerick books have bored me a good deal; but Webster's "Poker Book" is a masterpiece: that is, if you don't disapprove of poker. Personally, I think it a grand game. In Webster's book you have not only humor, but the rules of the game, chips, and many other little accessories. Games are a necessity in life. Yet some people cannot play them. It is their tragedy. They cannot play, perhaps because life became early too serious for them, or perhaps because in childhood they were not taught the necessities of competition, jovial competition. A young author came into the office the other day. Our genial publicity man, who wields a tennis racket with taste, suggested a game. "Can't", was the reply. "If you'll sail with me on the Sound, all right, but if it's one of those things called games, I'm sorry." Well, that's the way with some of us, and it's a pity. Somehow I feel that to know how to play baseball and tennis, golf, poker, bridge, even mah jong, with grace and skill and a knowledge of sportsmanship, is part of the duty of every intelligent citizen. Edna Kenton has been editing "The Jesuit Relations" for a one volume edition soon to be published. She tells an amusing story of her library experiences. Have you ever been in one of the small study rooms at the New York Public Library? Take the oriental room, for example. You go in there and you see people reading papers that look for all the world like pieces of Egyptian papyrus. It's fascinating. Well, Edna Kenton says that she worked for months in the same room, along with several other ladies and gentlemen. Finally, one day as she was about to finish, an old gentleman who was working up some data on the Puritans asked her what she was doing. She told him. Then she showed him some of her material, and it moved him very much. The stories of these brave priests would be interesting to anyone, no matter what his creed. He asked her why she was doing it. "I'm not a Roman Catholic", she explained. "This is a piece of editing I'm doing." The old man seemed much relieved; for he was worried for fear she was a propagandist. The conversation had been overheard. Others working in the room joined in. A man preparing a story of the Seventh Day Adventists assured them that he was not an Adventist, the lady preparing a history of the Mormons was not a Mormon, and even the old gentleman so much interested in the Puritans admitted, at last, that he was not puritanical. Miss Kenton is one of the few women I know who still indulge in the art of conversation. She is rather terrifying; in for all the world becomes meat for her epigrammatical grinder. She is so fond of situations that I have even caught her creating them among her friends, just so she can play around them with her wit. I once heard of a king France, I think who was so fond of scandal that when he thought of a particularly pleasant one he sent out and commanded that it be executed. Not that Miss Kenton is like that; but she's certainly a past mistress of the quick retort. Her love of reading and studying Henry James has stood her in good stead. My idea of a perfect evening would be as a fly on the wall, hearing a conversation among Miss Kenton, Mrs. Wharton, Carl Van Vechten, and Stuart Pratt Sherman. If I were my friend the French king, I should bring this about. Alfred Fowler of Kansas City, the man to whom Hugh Walpole dedicates his new novel, publishes some of the loveliest books, from a printing standpoint, that we have in America. Take, for example, "The Woodcut Annual for 1925". Its pages are serene in their perfect blacks and their clear and fine paper. There are good articles on various phases of the woodcut, and there are plenty of reproductions, the loveliest of all of which to me is an Albrecht Dürer "St. Christopher". I am reproducing here a "Victor Hugo" by Auguste Lepère, after the Rodin Victor Hugo head. Walpole and Fowler have a love of prints in common, and it will be interesting for you to note that in "The Portrait of a Man with Red Hair" both the hero, American born, and the villain, he of the red hair, have this passion for old prints. It is a passion that is expensive to indulge, but it is one which has its gentle appeal; for those who really love the black and white find many paths to wander in as they handle the delicate sheets or sit before them, well framed, on home walls. The summer months are lightened by the play mood of our highbrow theatres. The "Garrick Gaieties" and "The Grand Street Follies" are well worth a trip to town to see. The lyrics in the former are quite the best in many months, nay, even years. If the chorus hasn't the precision of the Tiller girls, it has at least a large amount of real gaiety, and the formality of its dancing will doubtless grow as the summer progresses. Light verse in America is really prospering, even with F. P. A. in Europe. Dorothy Parker headed the famous column with a charming lyric the other day, and Vachel Lindsay has been flooding the Once in the countryside of Connecticut, in an old fashioned house with deep beds and wide fireplaces, I met a quiet gentleman with sandy hair and a gentle manner, who spoke of art and the roads and the state of the weather. I had not caught his name when introductions were made, and we spent several delightful days in the same house, while I called him by the wrong cognomen and everyone else called him by some other name which seemed to have no bearing on the situation. I can think of few other poets who could go so many days without making themselves or their work a part of the discussion. This was Ridgely Torrence, and he is undoubtedly one of the most important lyric poets in America. His Negro plays are well known. He is poetry editor of "The New Republic". Yet Ridgely Torrence he publishes seldom. "Hesperides", which now greets us in grey-green, vellum and gold, is a lovely volume. It should make a strong bid for the Pulitzer Prize next year, provided that prize is not given as it should be posthumously to Amy Lowell. Henry B. Fuller is in New York City this summer. I first met him at the gate of Trinity Church, where I was serving as best man at a small wedding. "Are you being married?" he asked. "I don't think so", I replied, although the groom hadn't as yet appeared and there was some feeling on my part that the minister might insist on there being a wedding anyway. "Will you come in?" I asked, And he did. The author of "The Cliff-Dwellers" and "On the Stairs" made an excellent wedding guest. Alas, I had introduced him not only to a wedding but to an adventure. The next morning I received the following note: Trinity churchyard is like matrimony itself easier to get into than to get out of. After I had tried four gates I concluded that I was locked in. What to do? Well, if the several Italian workmen could get out as it seems they must so could I. No. 1, addressed in English, was no good. But No. 2, when told in Italian that there had been a wedding and that the bridegroom was an Italian himself (I didn't overlook that point!), developed an interest. He called up No. 3 Oh, Giovanni!" from the cellar (of course I mean from the "crypt"), and Giovanni, as he produced his key and let me out under the Sixth Avenue L, was greatly pleased to hear that his enterprising young compatriot had graduated one day and had married the next. Mr. Fuller has left his native Chicago in order to finish some work here in the great or rather greater city. He says that he notices one great difference between the two towns, that it is impossible to make friends with children on the New York streets. This makes him feel very sad. "When you can't make friends with children and dogs", he says, "life is very prosaic." However, in Harlem the other day, when he was having his shoes shined, a group of dark young ladies danced in front of him asking if he were Santa Claus. Yes, he told them; he had cut his beard a little, but would let it grow before Christmas. They then turned somersaults for him, and danced, and gave him a list of the things they wanted him to bring them for next year's holidays. That's another characteristic of New York, he tells me, that very few people wear beards. Burton Rascoe, also connected with Chicago memories, told Mr. Fuller that he could think of no better novel to follow as an example than "On the Stairs". Mr. Rascoe has very nearly finished his own story, "Gustibus", which will probably appear in the autumn. E. V. Lucas has returned to London, to the management of Methuen's, of which he is chairman, and to that delightful table around which the editors of "Punch" sit in conclave. Before he left, we tried to find Louis Bromfield's house at Cold Spring Harbor, and finally succeeded. Mr. Bromfield was busily engaged, when we arrived, in cutting his novel to a reasonable length. He assured us that bathing was not so cold as we suspected; but we preferred to talk about books and life in a house formerly inhabited by a sea captain. Mr. Lucas told several stories of A. A. Milne, and his experiences with "When We Were Very Young", a book which proves that people want verse and will read it, if it strikes their fancy. This small volume has been a best seller both here and in England. It seems that the Roosevelts on their way to Africa stopped in London only long enough to call upon Mr. Milne and get him to autograph copies of his book. for them. Such is success in poetry. This was a particularly good anecdote for Long Island, and was told, appropriately enough, as we passed the Roosevelt grave. Mr. Lucas is one of the wisest and kindliest of all the English authors. Never once while he was here did I hear him say an unkind thing about his contemporaries,, although he voiced many wise criticisms and made constant witticisms, witticisms which were as profound, often, as they were amusing. Another English visitor was Basil Blackwell, the Oxford publisher. Mr. Blackwell looks astonishingly young. He has made his reputation largely on the publication of most successful children's books. He tells me that a child's book in England sells much as an ordinary book does here, and that the new volumes are those most in demand. The sale of a child's book here, however, may be quite small the first year, and yet build into popularity over a period of time. The English publishers it has been my pleasure to meet are charming gentlemen, and they know an astonishing amount about our authors. I suppose it is their business, but I must say that they seem to be really interested in American writing. |