Melba

NON-FICTION

Another prima donna has written her memoirs,* and if the manner in which they have been set down is not notably distinctive, they have at least the advantage of having as their subject a personage. Now 67 years old, retired, living in her native Australia, she tells the story of an eventful, glamorous career, beginning with her struggles as Mrs. Nellie Mitchell Armstrong to interest someone in her voice, her study with Marchesi, eccentric old lady who could not tolerate Nellie's one winter dress and would not let her wash her hair for fear of taking cold. There are more memories than melodies. There are tales of de buts and ovations, of how Peche Melba got its name, of the War work that made her a Dame of the British Empire. There are tales, of practical jokes, most of them expensive, many of them thread bare, which, if one may judge by the space allotted them, must have seemed to Melba excruciatingly funny. There is nothing about the practical Melba, the Melba who promoted the first taxi company in Australia and made a fortune when Australia did nobly by its Nell. But there are anecdotes, many of them priceless, gossipy friendly ones, about such famed folk as Sarah Bernhardt, who coached her Marguerite; Wilhelm Hohenzollern, who flicked his fin gers and the Empress followed; King Edward VII, who felt obliged to discuss affairs of state all through her singing; Oscar Wilde, the last time she saw him a "tall, shabby man, his collar turned up to his neck," who stopped her on a Paris street to ask for money; Ellen Terry, Charlie Chaplin, Anton Rubinstein, Lord Northcliffe, Jean de Reszke, Nellie Melba.

Sharper

FORTY YEARS A GAMBLER ON THE MISSISSIPPI--George H. Devol --Henry Holt ($2). An inland buccaneer tells many disconnected anecdotes of fleecing the not-so-innocents who traveled up and down the great valley before, during and after the Civil War. The chief characters are the three little pasteboards of three-card monte; the marked poker deck; palmed aces, loaded dice and Devol, who never would give up his takings, preferring a rough-and-tumble every time. He was an expert rough-and-tumbler and left a trail of broken noses behind him by his deftness at ramming with his head. He has but one moral to point-- that the suckers are just as crooked as the gamblers but not so clever. Many of his anecdotes are entertaining, all are lively, but they suffer from lack of variety.

"One for All"

DOLLARS ONLY--Edward W. Bok -- Scribner ($1.75). A wealthy retired editor pens a vigorous exhortation to those who waste too much of their lives in the vehement pursuit of the Dollar, an exhortation to public service, "one for all." He promises satisfaction such as they have never known to all who will enlist under that banner with a strange device, "Service."

FICTION

First and Last

IN A GERMAN PENSION--Katherine Mansfield-- Knopf ($2). With this volume Katherine Mansfield's admirers complete the sheaf of sensitive writing that was confined, by her death three years ago, to five slender books of sketches and stories and one book of poems. It is her first book -- a collection of miniatures written at 19 for the Athenaeum and published in book form in 1911, two years before she married John Middleton Murry, critic and editor. She later disowned what was for her a display of immaturity and youthful bitterness, refusing to capitalize, with a new edition in 1914, the odium into which Germany had fallen in her country. There is immaturity, there is bitterness, in her descriptions of thick-chopped Teutons at their meat, discussing their internal disorders, their women, their business, their beer. But also there is the early mark of the writer's unique talent-- some say genius-- "to reach and bring before us the in-between spaces and things and thoughts," excitingly, yet so quietly. Many readers to whom Katherine Mansfield's artistically superior later work seems attenuated sometimes to the vanishing point, may even find these girlish outbursts the most downright readable of all.

Gross

NIZE BABY--Milt Gross--Doran ($2). An astonishing number of seemingly sane people are going around saying to one another: "Nize baby. Itt opp all de crim from whit, so momma'll gonna tell you a sturry." Here is the explanation, in book form. Author Gross conducts, with brush and typewriter, a Sunday "feature" for the New York World entitled "Gross Exaggerations," a feature consisting of four floors of a Ghetto tenement, with thin walls and a dumb-waiter shaft. Of all the conversations overheard, none mangle the President's American more ingeniously than the mealtime tales told by the topfloor parent to her offspring. Try this bit: "... a Ferry-Tail from Jeck witt de Binn-Stuck. Wance oppon a time, was leeving a werry, werry poor weedow witt a son from de name from Jeck. Hm!--sotch a lazy sheeftless goot for netting wot he was. A whole day henging arond witt de loafers in de front from de poolroom instat wot he should look for a dissint job. So dey hed it one seengle cow wot he became gredually wery skinny from lack from narrish-ment, so dey decited wot dey'll gonna sell de cow. [Nize baby, take anodder spoon Chucklitt Putting.]

"Pot II

"So Jeck was motching witt de cow to de mocket he should sell de cow so he mat gredually in de rote a man wot he was kerrying a beg from binns. So he sad: 'Goot monnink, gimme a binn.' So de man sad, 'A binn you want, ha, you frash keed? Hm!--sotch a crost witt a noive wot dem keeds got nowadays. Dees is werry wellyible binns. From one binn you could make at list a gellon binn-zoop. Eeef you'll geeve me de cow--I'll geeve you de whole beg from binns.' So Jeck, dot dope, sad: 'Ho K. De dill is on!!' So dey made a trait. . . ."

"Pot V

"So on de top from de binnstuck was a kestle in wheech it leeved a hogre wot he ate opp pipple. So Jeck gave a knock on de door so it upperied de door de hogre's wife. So Jeck sad: 'Goot monnink, Meessus Hogre!!' So she sad: 'Who you??' So he sad: 'Hm--I'm from de Gezz Company--wot I should ridd de mitter. . . .' ". . . So it came in gredually de hogre wot he gave a sneef so he sad:

FEE, FOOY, FOOY, FOM!

I smell de blood from a Human Bing!

Be he alife odder be he dat--

I'll make from heem a corn-biff sanawich!"

*MELODIES AND MEMORIES--Nellie Melba-- Doran ($5).