Comings & Goings

Visitors in the U. S. last week included:

"Anastasia." No imperial personage would be more welcome in the U. S. than Her Imperial Highness, Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest and most vivacious daughter of the last murdered Tsar of all the Russias. Unfortunately a young woman who landed from the Berengaria, last week, claiming to be Anastasia, was believed to be almost certainly an impostor.

Rothermere. "American women are clever, beautiful and the best dressed in the world, but they have too few babies. In touring the country one sees too few children. With restricted immigration in effect, this looks bad for future population." So said Harold Sidney Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere, brother and successor to the late British newspaper titan, Lord Northcliffe. Having spoken, Lord Rothermere embarked recently at Manhattan for England.

A. E. Titillating is the presence in the U. S. of famed "Gaelic Sage" George William Russell, poet, painter, mystic, essayist economist, and editor of the Irish Statesman, who has intrigued many by his pseudonym "A. E."

As an authentic co-leader with William Butler Yeats of the "Gaelic Renaissance," Sage Russell, now lecturing throughout the U. S., commands respect for the following judgment: ". . . The first phase of great civilization is that of mastery of the plastic and material arts. America is now passing through this phase: witness her buildings that scrape the skies, rails thrown across a continent. Your next phase will be literature. I believe a gigantic literature."

Capablanca. Landing at Manhattan from Buenos Aires, last week, the great Cuban chess master Jose Raoul Capablanca said: "In chess today everything is known to great players. There are no new moves, no new tactics to consider. If the game is to live and grow popular it will have to be made harder."

Alluding to Alexander Alekhine, who wrested from Capablanca the chess championship of the world, last December, he said: "Naturally I expect to regain the championship."

Lauder. Now on his "5th Annual Farewell Tour" of the U. S. is Sir Harry Lauder. Last week in Manhattan he rang a new change on his old story of how, when his son John was killed in the War, he pocketed his grief "and was singing for the Tommies four days later." Last week he claimed that, although stricken with grief at the death of Lady Lauder (TIME, Aug. 8), he has again mastered himself and "Now I find singing the only way to forget. . . ."

Lipton. "I always ask the reporters to put stories about me in an obscure corner of the first page," said jovial Sir Thomas Lipton, at Manhattan last week, when asked if he objected to publicity.