Various

“ At the gate entrance of this palatial gambling-hell, I noticed policemen taking the license number of every auto that arrived, to keep track of the chauffeurs, many of whom are crooks and cut-throats. If you do survive, and reach Havana in safety, the size of your bill makes you feel very “automobilious.” Sad but true, it is easier to locate some of our United States diplomatic officials at the Casino at night, than in their offices during the day. ”

“ In the afternoon and evening, work gives way to play. All classes meet and mingle on the street; silk and cotton, glove and hard hand, auto and carriage, revel in a democracy of delight. It is as necessary and natural to play as to work, and we must have rest, recreation and rejoicing. ”

“ Stand on the corners, walk the streets of our own big cities, the capitals of the Old World, or far-away countries, and behold the extremes of work and idleness, vice and virtue, sickness and health, innocent mirth and mad amusement. ”

“ With dozens of companies ceasing to produce, offers haven’t come bounding in at an alarming rate. Or perhaps Jane didn’t know husband was such a capable actor and could make such a hit? Can it be she at last realizes what a precious jewel she has lost, and that now it is Jane’s turn to hope they make up, and Valentino’s to assert manly indifference toward the fair sex entirely? Hollywood wonders how it will come out. ”

“ The loneliness of his heart oppresses him among the crowd of unending faces which have no friendly word for him, and he stands “among hurrying figures of men weaving to and fro, seeming like a masque of maniacs or a pageant of phantoms.” ”

“ The people get a view of her that isn’t only shoes.
I hate, of course, to moralize, to lecture or to prate,
But troubles have their ending if the troubled only wait;
And probably, if Daphne’s good, and patient as a saint,
The skirt will pass to savages, and she will have their paint ”

“ Next morning high society may hush up the disgrace and infamy, but guilty hearts know their own bitterness and that evening’s comedy has turned to morning’s tragedy.
Cities resemble a Demon’s brain, and the women of the night are its evil thoughts. There are too many wantons with powdered face, brazen look and leering laughter ”

“ The people follow each other like the waves of a storm-tossed sea, and long after you have returned to your room their walking, talking, laughing and crying comes to you like the sad moan of the sea trying to be at peace.
Nature is the place to study God in the book of field, mountain and ocean. City streets are the place to study man in the sham, struggle and sin of life. ”

“ They cry for financial aid, yet I witnessed a Sunday carnival where $75,000 was foolishly thrown away like so much confetti.
The Havana youth is a dissipated dude who improves his mind by strutting and staring on the piazzas, and accosting women with insulting looks and [26] words. With him cursing passes for rhetoric. His time and money are well spent at race-track, cock-pit, roulette table and the harlot’s house. He is familiar with all liquors except the stimulating wine of progress. ”

“ Among the subjects in which there is at present a universal agreement is the declaration that the American short story is the highest in perfection of any form of fiction that is put out in the world. Even the French, artists as they are, must take a back seat when it comes to the writing of tales that are brief and effective. ”

“ Main dining rooms have been turned into prize rings, where, during a lull in the supper dance, the fighters, their seconds, water bottles, cuspidors and other necessary adjuncts are led forth.
No, prizefighters don’t generally have cuspidors; they generally spit in the water bucket or on the floor; anyhow, they spit. They can’t help it.
The swell hotels of Pasadena and Los Angeles already have staged their preliminary fistic functions. There is no bunc about the fights, at least so far as appearance and appurtenances are concerned. ”

“ Fights and brawls are common; city jails are full of American drunks and toughs. Cuba has imported laborers from Haiti to raise cane, but the worst “Cain-raisers” have come from the United States. Sterne said, “An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen”—an American does not care to journey here to meet such Americans.
The tourist, robbed right and left, need have little fear of the Havana señorita stealing away his heart. Her beauty is largely mythical. As a rule, the Cuban woman looks as if she had used a barrel of flour to powder her face, and her body is built on barrel-hoop lines. ”

“ At night good people say an early “Good night,” read their Bible, pray, put out the light, and snore. The Devil begins just then to light his red lamp and lead his votaries into paths that too often end in disease of body, darkness of mind, and death of soul. ”

“ Glyn did not dance with many, according to the correspondent of this great family journal.
Mrs. Glyn is writing a new story for the Lasky company. Of course the Lasky people aren’t telling around just yet what the story is to be about, but the gossips whisper that it’s to be like this:
A girl, born of a Russian dancer mother, and a staid American father, grows up into a beautiful woman. However, everyone who knew of her mother’s wild, wild life, fear the girl will develop into the same sort of female. But she never does, until, way out west, she is bitten by a snake. ”

“ If you are mad and tired of Cuba, go to Guadeloupe and Martinique in the French West Indies where the rent-hog is unknown; where a good room rents for $7 a month; [22] where a course dinner, with a bottle of wine, at the best hotel will cost you only 40 cents; where rum punch is three cents a glass, wine five cents, and the best brands of champagne, $1.50 to $2.00 a quart. In Cuba you pay $2.50 for a bottle of wine, and $12 for a quart of champagne.
Pascal wrote that man was the “glory and scum of the universe.” Much of the scum of the United States has floated to Havana. ”

“ Many are the travelers, like Pantagruel, in search of the Dive Bouteille—Holy Bottle, and who believe in its oracular utterance—“Drink!” The man who holds in veneration the memory of Noah, notices on entering Havana that the harbor entrance is “bottle-necked,” and well “fortified”—with booze. The “Fountain of Youth” here is not water, but “cask”ades of wine and beer, etc. However, one needs the purse of Croesus, for if you want to drink you must pay what the bar wants to charge—a price as exorbitant as smuggled liquor brings in the States. ”

“ If there were no girls,—but there are more girls than boys, and necessarily for wives and mothers to fill the vacancies caused by war, vice and death. If there were no streets,—but streets are essential as arteries of commerce, avenues of friendly meeting and public parade. ”

“ Now the dainty damsels of the screen have the excitement for which their artistic temperaments crave! For the edification of the filmland folk, Los Angeles hotels have introduced the prize fight as a dinner attraction, partly supplanting the dinner dansant, and here we have diminutive Bebe Daniels cavorting at one of these film fight feasts, rubbing elbows with effete Kid McCoy, whose barefoot partner, as Richmond states, put on her shoes and walked out.
Society prize fights are the latest in Los Angeles and Pasadena. The winter tourists, society people and so on have fallen. ”

“ The men wear regulation ring clothes and, as everyone knows, this means they can’t wear much more than [48] most of the women present, who shriek with delight and false alarm at the thud of brawny fists on hairy breasts and bloody noses. ”

“ Surely a Chicago court would grant her a split from her spouse. And a husband who would bite his wife’s mole also might be in danger of being divorced by a woman who believed she was entitled to a less emotional husband. ”

“ The Havana Oriental race-track has a bad name even among sports. There was no exhibition of fine, fast horses or fast time, simply a fast set who threw the races to the bettors who gave the most graft. ”

“ Some of the younger stars might do well to emulate them. Yet, perhaps before a star becomes a [50] luminous planet it must do its sparkle; cast its lesser light, until the fact that it does not glow at every gay party can cause more comment than the mere presence, thereat, would cause. ”

“ Men are what women marry. They have two feet, two hands, and sometimes two wives, but never more than one collar button, or one idea at a time.
Like Turkish cigarettes, men are all made of the same material, the only difference being that some are a little better distinguished than others. ”

“ Well, anyhow, the Valentino family separated about a year ago. For a time, Rudolph was heartbroken over the separation and urged his mutual friends to help him make up the difference. Just then, Jane had offers galore from film companies and she was believed upstage and independent, and to have refused to consider Valentino for a second session. Now, lately, the tables have turned. Valentino has made a great hit in the Metro photoplay taken from the biggest seller of last year. He can just about command his own salary in filmdom from now on. And, wife Janie hasn’t had such an easy winner. ”

“ Film companies bane talking to cut down wages for actors because room rent bane so high. Hotel keeper fallers lak to get actors out of town so they getting more room for Nebraska farmers with money. Small room in cellar with kitchen sink an’ towel with red fringe cost $185.00 first month an’ $320.00 second.
Most actor fallers eating in Caffeteriá Lunch Room. Every faller march round in line lak looking on corpse at funeral an grab yunk off counter when you go by. After you skol eating you skol sneak out an not wash dishes but everything else you skol do self. ”

“ Jane will receive her final decree of divorce within a few weeks now. Bill is building on to his lovely home in Hacienda Park. The Spanish mansion now is divided into two sections with a long roofed corridor running between. The new wing of rooms has lately been added to the lovely mansion. Is Bill going to be a truly modern husband and keep his own sanctum sanctorum at one end of the mansion for himself and allow his wife to have a number of rooms in which she, of her own free will, may roam as she pleases? ”

“ He bane quiet faller an’ never going out an’ get fresh with girls. He bane in Hollywood two year an’ not skol getting divorce yet.
Ay get introduction to girl name Sweet Patootie working on set in Universal City. She skol kom from Fon du Lak Wisconsin because she looking lak Theda Barrels an’ she aint skol making only nine dollar week in laundry. Ay aint know her only ten minutes before she swiping may watch an’ saxty cent lunch money so Ay got to walk back to Loose Angels from Universal City. She making gude allright Ay bat your life. ”

“ A married man fell in a vat of moonshine mash and drowned, but the papers said he died in good spirits.
Love is an itching of the heart—a place where you can’t scratch.
Girls, you can always tell if a man really loves you. ”

“ They say that for a smart, wise lot of lads the New York hotel clerks are hard to beat. But not always. The other day I happened to be in the Astor lobby when a pair of young newlyweds came in from the street. The rice and confetti was still over them for all to see. The happy groom went up to the desk to register. In the course of the conversation I overheard this from the clerk: “Yes, sir; and do you want a room with twin beds?” Can you beat it! ”

“ Ay taking plot from may own life an’ Ay pay Scenario School $75.00 for book telling how to getting rich writing play. After Ay write play faller that running school say he skol sell him on commission. There bane more ways to getting rich in Loose Angels than any other towns in United States. If faller aint skol sal may play Ay skol beat hims up an’ making may own picture. ”

“ Ay bane working in gude moving picture they call “FADED OVERALLS” an Ay bane nature nobleman running ’round mountain ’bout saxteen mile an’ skol carry bull calf on may back Ay skol pull out from landslide by hind feets. After while it skol began to raining when faller turn fire hose on me. I skol be standing under weeping willow tree somewhere in Montana yust back of electric lights plant in Hollywood. When faller turn on hose, calf she getting mad an’ start to kick an’ beller. ”

“ Whiz Bang is not long-haired, consequently can’t be against a good boxing contest or a fight, whatever it is they call them. But one may entertain an opinion that some things were meant for men and if there is anything a man is better fitted for, or can do better, than women, for heaven’s sake let him do it. ”

“ Don’t let him see the practice you’ve had.
Woman spends much time in thinking what she would do were she a man, while man spends much time knowing what he would do if he were a woman.
Some folk take pleasure in seeing that others have none. ”

“ If you win anything there, you are lucky to get back to town with it without being murdered or robbed. Recently a young man, who made a fortune over night here, disappeared, and all they found of him was his leg. ”

“ Bull calf she bane wet from hose lak me an’ yump round till she skol getting her tail caught in crotch of weeping willow tree an’ short circuit, so when faller throw in switch juice she run down calf’s tail an’ hit me in may neck so Ay see stars an’ moons an’ 670000.00 dollars worth moving pictures for two minutes an’ when Ay skol waking up Ay bane in Mercenary [18] Hospital with blondy nurse girl giving may big shot home-made alcohol mixed with chile peppers. Ay swallowing quick an bane be knock out ’gan for sax hour till Ay getting sober up. ”

“ He recently attended an informal little house dance in Hollywood and lurked in a shadowy corner all evening because Marjorie was not with him. Mary and Doug. are quietly and intensively working overtime to interest Marjorie in Bennie Ziedman, business manager for “Doug.” Now, Bennie is entirely cheerful, he’s a nice unaffected little chap whom everyone likes and they say Doug. pays him some fat salary! Bennie hasn’t his supposed rival’s mysterious South-of-Europe eyes and hair, but he’s an enterprising, live-wire Yankee. Now, Mary and Doug. are a couple of sly, old match-makers. ”