Various

“ Curly blonde hair lends it distinction, especially in New York. It is pleasant, with an increasingly forceful appeal.
If Nurmi has had a thought, apart from running, he has not voiced it. Life for him is divided into three phases, preparing for a race, winning the race, and resting after achievement. Living itself is glorious and wonderful, for has it not made him fleetest among the world’s fleet of foot? ”

“ WHETHER it is due to publishers becoming producers, or to the less commercial producers for organizing a literate audience, or to the movies for purging it by drawing away the lowbrow elements, Broadway is putting on better and better plays—plays that are actually literature. ”

“ Perhaps, again, it is simply a disinclination to discover America, a reluctance which has built up a defensive disdain. He has found it as unnecessary to study American minds, American aspirations, American art, as to study the American language. ”

“ One meets at his parties great scientists, authors, musicians, people of the stage, all with a common denominator: reality. For that is Will Beebe′s distinguishing characteristic, the ability to find and sound the reality of people. That is why his books on science are more widely read than popular works of fiction. And that is why one can be sure that each member of his staff, while standing high in the professional capacity, will have a still higher place as a human being. ”

“ Being perverse, in matters like this, it encourages us all the more to shout from all the housetops that as literature, history, social interpretation, and discovery, THESE UNITED STATES is the finest book on our country that has yet appeared. ”

“ A small man, physically, Mr. Walker, minority leader in the New York State Senate: a demi-tasse among legislator: more at home with mustache cups. His face is thin; his features sharp, and his cheeks have the perennially youngish tint of the juvenile who bounds onstage as the chief chorine shrills: “Oh, girls, here comes the Prince now.” Along Broadway he would past unnoticed, or in an Equity meeting. ”

“ It recognizes certain shortcomings and realizes that it is impossible for a magazine fully to establish its character in one number. At the same time it feels a great deal of pride in many of its features and heart-felt gratitude for the support it already has received.
The New Yorker starts with a declaration of serious purpose but with a concomitant declaration that it will not be too serious in executing it. It hopes to reflect metropolitan life, to keep up with events and affairs of the day, to be gay, humorous, satirical but to be more than a jester. ”

“ If one had time he might evolve a formula for successful shows which would run something on this order: “Better a third rate artist and a first rate publicity man than a first rate artist and no publicity man at all.” They do say, around about the galleries that there is considerable pique over the tremendous fuss made over the Spaniard’s work. There is a moral in it for the American gallery. A race reared on billboards, nourished on Mellen’s Food, Quaker Oats and washed with Ivory soap, will never seek its art in dark corners. ”

“ It is, of course, tragic. “The Matriarch,” by G. B. Stern (Knopf) is high comedy with humor, an exuberantly done inside chronicle of an upper class Jewish family, whose principal branch gets from Austria to England and there smashes under the age-cracked Anastasia’s ruinous matriarchy, after which one of her granddaughters picks up pieces to carry on. We can think of no novel not longer that sets as many good characters going and reconciles you as quickly to keeping track of them.
If you are fond of satire, your best fun in that line may be Rose Macaulay’s “Orphan Island” (Doran) . ”

“ There are those who contend that Columbus never visited New York, but this is absurd. No one ever comes to America without visiting New York; and the stories Columbus carried back to Spain describe Manhattan perfectly. He was impressed particularly by the dancing craze, and by the utterly shocking styles in women’s clothes. Also, he noted, the inhabitants generally spoke with a foreign accent: and they made a big fuss whenever a distinguished foreigner arrived. ”

“ No one ever did know: for as soon as you get acquainted with any one, he ceases to be Red. New York is said to be a Red Stronghold still, because there are so many people in town who don’t know each other. ”

“ For a moment he stands locking from the window at the newsboys howling the afternoon papers. The crowds in front of the bulletin boards grow more vociferous. New York at large is preparing to succumb to its once-in-four-years period of hysteria. ”

“ This two week′s delay looms as a tremendous obstacle and you hasten breathlessly to the the telephone company′s office where you become part of a throng surrounding a man at the counter who dodges to a desk telephone for conversational purposes every forty seconds, obviously to demonstrate what a really great help this invention is to a busy man. ”

“ And everyone would know that this signified “My friends, I cannot help feeling that business to-day is something more than the mere pursuit of the dollar, the quest of profits, the beating of the other fellow. ”

“ Once, when an expedition had occasion to stop at Panama, Will Beebe walked off with the tennis championship. On a dance floor there is no more desirable partner than this same scientist. As a musician he can play almost any instrument that has strings. ”

“ The city room is more serene and tranquil than a saloon which sells nothing but near-bear. The man who does Hearts Bereft is gloomily figuring out a three-letter word meaning Japanese sash, the octogenarian who dopes the Kute Kracks and sells them to himself at one dollar a krack is playing one-handed parcheesi, and the permanent author of the Daily True Story is trying to get a week’s supply in advance so he may run up to Montreal for a couple of days and sample some fine old Scotch manufactured on Staten Island and imported via Burlington, Vermont. ”

“ After Jumbo is tamed everything is simple and you go forward without misgiving, confident that such achievement cannot but bring success. Ultimately the carpenters quit walking over your desk, the glaziers get through, the puttiers finish, the lowing herds wind slowly o′er the lea and things are peaceful enough to get out a magazine. ”

“ There are also half a dozen reporters, trying to recover from the night before election; four rewrite men, who have abandoned hope of ever recovering; the city editor, who is reading Variety, and the assistant city editor, who is doing nothing at all except looking blank. The telephone rings, and the assistant city editor, with the air of an early martyr, answers it. ”

“ Here is a group that knows the value of publicity. Perhaps it is never a very attractive goat chosen for the sacrifice, but it suffices to get on the front page and bring thousands to the show. Despised by the old guard, perhaps, but containing always something of merit. A shrewd collector may save himself much by purchasing at the Independent rather than waiting until the artist has gained partial recognition and moved up Fifth. ”

“ He gives the public what it likes, and the public—through a board of Metropolitan directors—compensates him generously.
For the public′s sake he has persuaded himself that opera is as much a social as a musical institution. If the public prefers “Tosca” for the benefit of the Save-a-Pet Home to “Don Giovanni” for the good of its own soul ... it is the American public after all. And if the American public doesn't like novelties—ecco! ”

“ When they wanted to stick their name on anything, nothing on earth could stop them. According to one of the ancient legends, a certain Duke insisted that “Trinity College” be called “Duke University”; and the directors unanimously decided to make the change. The story is of course legendary, but well illustrates how “New York” came to get its ridiculous name.
The next great figure in the early legends of New York is that of Jonef Hylan. Hylan, in all probability, was not a real person; but it is impassible to understand New York without giving careful study to the Hylan myth. ”

“ New York is unhealthy.
New York is outrageously expensive.
New York is bitterly cold in winter.
New York is steaming hot in summer.
I wouldn’t live outside New York for anything in the world.—C. G. S.
The Painted Lily
A Portrait
Due to the fiction of devilishness built around her, she feels it necessary to assume an attitude of complete innocence—so complete, in fact, that the word ignorance might be more appropriate. Her best lines are: “I adore chinchilla,” “Champagne, please,” and “Do you really love me?” She prefers taxis to street cars, and Rolls-Royces to taxis. ”

“ Five young women scientists are in the party and a few distant great-aunts who love conventions above all else will be happy to know that one of them is married. She is M. D. Fish, the assistant in larval fish distributions, whose husband, Dr. C. J. Fish is also a member of the staff as Assistant in Diatoms and Crustacea.
“In the youthful company also is Dwight Franklin, whom most of us know for his striking models of pirates, marine marauders and the tiny reproductions of medieval rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elsewhere. ”

“ George Jean Nathan, who when not engaged in his more serious work of telling everybody where to get off at, finds relaxation in writing for Mr. Hearst′s publications, is the author of “Women Are Playthings.” Ah there, (as the editor of our “In Our Midst” column would say) George! ”

“ One of the first things you do in starting a magazine, after you have got the notion to do it and, as our advertising friends say, sold your associates on the idea, is to rent an office and the next thing you do is get a telephone. You don′t actually get a telephone next, but you put in an application for one. ”

“ The best German tenor in the Metropolitan company is the ever admirable Edward Johnson, who is also the best French tenor, and, in many respects, the best Italian tenor. “Eddie” was famous in Italy for his performances in “Lohengrin,” “Die Meistersinger,” “Tristan und Isolde” and “Parsifal,” but New York has not heard him in these operas. Johnson has sung Wagnerian roles in Italian only and polyglot performances are taboo at the Metropolitan, although unintentionally polyglot versions occasionally are heard. Probably the task of restudying the roles in German appalls the gifted tenor. ”

“ The author of the Daily True Story, who has long ago given up hope of an advance supply and for two hours has been sitting in a state of coma, covers three sheets of copy paper with “Now is the time———”
A rewrite man, who has been listening in total apathy to a reporter’s account of an East Side fire, suddenly becomes intensely interested in finding out what it was all about, and asks questions carefully designed to sound intelligent.
The city editor drops the remains of his Western sandwich into the basket. His assistant grabs the phone and calls up a series of mythical numbers. ”

“ The Director, William Beebe: a scientist for whom obstacles are simply the condiments of conquest. The New York Zoological Park is a crystallization of his own energy. After leaving college he passed several years at the large extent of marsh and swamp which was the zoological park and when he left he had established an institution which is one of the best in the country. This is equally true of every field in which he has been active.
“He was interested in ornithology and the most authoritative work on pheasants bears his name. ”

“ Two of the big collar firms have combined. Our own Beauty Contest judges announce that the handsomest man in American is now Mister Cluett Peabody Earl Wilson.
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It turned out, after a New York jury had got down to business, that the foreman didn′t understand English, so the judge excused him and told the remaining eleven to reach a verdict on of their own. We don′t get the point. Readers of Daily News doubtless don′t understand English but they ought to be experts on crime.
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We and Mr. Hearst are among those who credit Mayor Hylan with sagacity. ”

“ Should the Sons and Daughters of the Advent try to rent the hill for a private wafting upward on a privately calculated date, so popular has become the spirit of first-come-first-served, that the Sons and Daughters are usually gracious enough to re-examine the Book of Revelations so that the Reformed Disciples of the King may keep a previously scheduled tryst with heaven. ”

“ The members of that race wish to be told about it, they wished to be “sold,” as every good Rotarian knows. Let them read about it in the Sunday papers and on the billboards and they will walk a mile for it, even though it be art.
An artist standing in front of the Michael Strange portrait at the Zuloaga show was explaining to his companion that the legend existed that the reason Zuloaga did not paint so well now as in his earlier days, was that he only took up brush when his son wanted money to buy a new motor car. ”

“ Half a dozen other men, most of them in their early thirties complete the staff, which with an operating crew of thirty-four will spend the next six months or more on a ship in the middle of a sea, They will see each other three times a day around the dining table. For the rest of the day each expects to be so busy with his own work that meeting in the evening will be an event. And from the number of gay shawls and scarfs most of these events promise to be gala. ”

“ Forbes is rehearsing the part of Gavin Dishart, there is another rumor that Mr. Dillingham himself will join the Marilyn Miller company to play the role of Michael.
For a proper understanding of the ensuing anecdote, it is necessary to know that Heywood Broun, dramatic critic of the World, is nevertheless a person of consequence in the eyes of Morris Gest and that further the same Gest attaches to the good opinion of Adolph S. Ochs, publisher of the New York Times, a value reserved by the rest of us for our right eyes. ”