Her Crystal Ball*

Miss Marbury's Catalog of Contemporaries

Miss Elisabeth Marbury, in the course of an active life as dramatic agent and politician, has met practically every notable contemporary. Of them she writes a stream of anecdotes, many interesting, others less so. Her style is not notable--her material voluminous. She is herself a personality not lacking in interest.

Her Career. The Quaker grandfather who had met George Washington and the first John Jacob Astor; her father, politician and wit; a first Paris dress; school teaching with Gifford Pinchot as pupil; potential marriages and amours which never came true; Mrs. William Waldorf Astor, who liked corked champagne because it reminded her of white wine; Thomas Henry Huxley on the croquet grounds; the patriot Gambetta, whose carriage contained a box of chocolates, a new novel, a bunch of violets; Frances Hodgson Burnett and the first Little Lord Fauntleroy-- Wallace Eddinger; France, with $3,000 worth of savings lost and a worldly capital of $300; Elsie de Wolfe, life-long friend, with a sense of humor and infallible taste; Arthur Brisbane when "we had heard little of W. R. Hearst;" Victorien Sardou --"a Voltaire touched by human sym-pathy;" "for 16 years I was the official agent for the French dramatists;" Charles Frohman and the purchase of Shenandoah; Eieonora Duse and the temperament of visiting stars; Nellie Melba on a bicycle; Clyde Fitch and five different desserts; Clyde Fitch's death on the road to Verdun; a penknife stuck into Arnold Daly; Max Beerbohm (of his brother Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, just knighted): "While he is Mr. Tree in the sight of the Law, he is now Sir Herbert in the sight of Almighty God;" Oscar Wilde and the Ballad of Reading Gaol, sold to The New York World for $250; Henry Irving, followed about the stage by the inseparable spotlight; Bernard Shaw: "Rapacious Elisabeth Marbury;" Clement Scott: "God knows I asked for fish;" Rostand "loudly sung my praises;" Owen Johnson--"not unlike many of his juvenile heroes;" "a Pope's slippers bartered for a courtezan's bath-tub;" Lillian Russell and a dark-eyed young man; Constant Coquelin, "whose Cyrano de Bergerac never compensated him for the loss of Romeo of Mantua;" Comte Robert de Montesquieu Fezensac: "Ah, dear friend, while the War lasts I shall never wear a flower. That is the sacrifice which I make to my country;" Jean Riche-pin--"no woman could resist him;" Henri Lavedan--"the crushing noise which was grinding in his head;" Henri Bernstein: "Are you there, Caillaux?"; J. M. Barrie rewrites The Little Minister; Jerome K. Jerome and his six plots; Charles Dana Gib-- son, from pupil to master; Anne Morgan--"her mind was ready for the spark plugs;" "Gyp, lover of Mon-keys;" Baron Pichon, tapping his head: "Here is my catalogue, I have none other;" Cecile Sorel in a Normandy inn; Wilbur Wright, "the bird-man from Dayton;" Henry Adams -- "courtly and lovable;" Bourke Cockran's "hibernian accent which was as percolating and mellow as ripe fruit;" Viviani and a five franc cigar; conversion to the Roman Church; Bernard Berenson--"intel-lectual acumen . . . supported by a keen commercial sense;" Emma Calve proves her liberality; C. Haddon Chambers--"no matter what his income might be, he always lived beyond it;" Hall Caine--"he believes what he writes;" Marie Corelli--"per-ennially youthful in appearance, and caustic in conviction;" Sarah Bem-hardt, on losing her leg: "Patience, my dear Marbury, I will soon hop in to you;" Mrs. Patrick Campbell and her diminutive canine, Nanky-Poo; "inimitable George M. Cohan," who wanted his name in the book; David Belasco, "who has done more to enrich and to advance the dramatic art of. this country than has any other single producer;" Gertrude Atherton "planted the state of California on our mental map;" Richard Harding Davis "liked to think himself the Rough Rider of literature;" "Cissle Loftus--"a nice girl and needed the money;" Irene and Vernon Castle and the founding of "Castle House;" the long legs of Vernon Castle; a Spartan War-mother and a slacking son; the Shuberts--"mere striplings, dark-haired, dark-eyed and determined; a face three-quarters shot away; Belgians who refused to shoot at the Germans; ten pairs of decomposing German ears; "Who will give a thousand dollars to see me dance with the policeman?" "Prohibition is no longer on experiment. It has been tried out with the dire result that it has derailed the morale of America."

New Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

THE GARDEN OF PERIL--Cynthia Stockley--Putnam ($2.00). Peril is in this case the heroine. She is a heroine, too, of the old school, a back-to-nature heroine, against a background of curious African vegetation. Into Peril's Rhodesian garden come two swashbuckling gentlemen of fortune. Their names, respectively, are Punch Heseltine, Major of Mounted Police, and Pam Heseltine, his cousin. Unhappily, Pam has permitted himself the luxurious indiscretion of a wife, who turns out to be a beguiling, insidious dabbler in the subtler sorceries. The book oscillates from the fragrance of the veldt, to moments of acute excitement, particularly while the incomparable Pam is battling with disease. The story is told economically, permits itself little deviation from formula, bristles with romance and what may be termed African color.

CHEAT-THE-BOYS--Eden Phillpotts-- Macmillan ($2.25). There were two women in Warner Lidgate's life : Betsy Neck, whom he should have loved; Gilyan Neck, whom he did. "Cheat-the-Boys" is the endearing nickname of Gilyan, who tosses the hearts of the youth of Devonshire about in a manner more piquant than kindly. Gilyan meant well by Warner, but the strings of their amours only became the more evolved, despite the timely arrival of Harold Lidstone, cousin from the city. Sunshine, ample-blossoms, cider, a deft and graceful style, carry the docile reader through unhurried pages of reflective charm.

*MY CRYSTAL BALL--Elisabeth Marbury--Boni ($3.50).