The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-25

is the newest book of Carl Van vetchen, and as he is not book reviewer. I may venture to call 1t most entertaining. Like all his essays. this collection Is authori- ta(iNe and informed with personal charm. The themes are various. ranging from Havelock Ellis to the Yiddish theatre in New York. Carl is an inveterate prowler or oyways, and preferably at night. If he had lived during the epoch of the glorious Harcun-al-Rashld. he would as his trusty vizier. have shown that merry monarch many things not set down in the book of a Thousand and One Nights We read herein the first detailed account in Eiglish of the composer Isaac AL beniz. Of Sapnish music and tho span ish theatre Van Nechen is the soundest guide. He considers the genius of Arthur Sullivan, though he does mention the gos- sin once prevalent that his real name was Seligmarn. The composer certainly looked it. The portrait of the late oscar Hammerstein Is a full length, the warts not forgotten. but it Is sympathetic and also authentic. Of Mary the Garden he writes He, oscar quarreied with Mary Garden, hut she called to see him only a few weeks before his death. Almost his last words to me were about her 'She does not know he said, 'how wonder fuf she is She knows she is greater than any of the others. but she dos not know how much greater.v Mistress Mary was no doubt touched when she read this, fresh as she was from her recent triumphs as Cleopatra in Paris. and her overwhelming success in 'L.'Amore del tre Re last week In Chicago. I can always reread the books of Carl Van Vetechen "
 Small wonder that such a renowned critis as MT. Huneker himself should en- joy Mir. Van Vetchen's charming book, for 1t abounds in deliciously entertaining situations, pictured as only a master mind like his could picture such things.
 Mir Van Vetchen ascends to the gar ret and peruses the contents of an an- cient trunk. Old books, bound in vellum and cloth, faded photographs, wood-cuts and engravings, dog-eared periodicals packets of letters. scrap of tabby' cash mere, and taffeta dresses, and theatre programmes fall under his eyes and slip through his fingers. Memories arise and the old garret is suffused with eandeni glow in which the cities of the past and present appear and disappear like mirages and the fingers of the past and present stalk like stately wraiths.
 There are gimpses of New York
 Florence. Nassau, Paris and London
 there are visions of Philip Thicknesse
 Isaac Albeniz, Sir Arthur Sullican, Far fareillo, George Moore, Fra Angelica and Mimi Aguglia Can musicians write poohS f1dS lONa produced ioik-sOnSSl Can masterpieces be successfully rewrit- ten? Has heaven or hell been the better inspiration to composers are sone~ of tho questions the author asks himself and tries to answer. This is book of pic. lures, portraits and moods.
 ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIANS ' (From the earliest times until the great war of 19lD. By Kevorz Asian. Trans
 lated from the French by Pierre Crab ties. (With a Preface on "The Evo- lution of the Armenian Question" by the 'Translator'). The Macmillan com
 pany, publishers. New York City
 Following an introductory chapter or the Armenian question, this book surveys Armenian history from the earliest times down to the present day. The geograph- ical situation, the climate, the origi' of the Armenians. the formation of Ar menian royalty early religious ideas and customs the conversion to Christianity the dawn of Armenian HteratnrA NM nenia under the domination of the By zantine empire, the Armenians during tn, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth