10 said Edgar Saltus, the close friend and dinner companion of the most sensational literary character in history, and he added, "If any mortal ever could talk as the high gods do, it was Oscar Wilde."

There is an eloquent story about Wilde: He never made a commonplace remark and yet he was projected into a society that loathed the unusualand he was confronted by ice. A moment and the ice melted. A moment and those people were in turbulence.

While he was riding the crest of popularity, and erybody was saying that Oscar Wilde was the most brilliant wit d romancer of his day-suddenly, calamity!

"I became tired of dwelling on the heights and descended by my own will into the depths..

That was written by Wilde himself in the most pathetic conssion in literature, "De Profundis." The fingers that penned the ht and carefree "Happy Prince" were tearing oakum in a prison. e Beau Brummel who was the Prince of Paradox was thrust into e most terrific paradox of all. And he had said:

"Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance."

These bizarre events aroused a vicious public opinion. Овсаг ilde was one day an idol of popularity and the next he was mathema in the public eye. To this day he is not understood, he a sensational puzzle.

And so a group of fifteen leading men of arts and letters now ep forward to introduce, as it were, Wilde to the American abile. Most of these men knew him intimately, and they reveal s personal character and his work with vivid illumination that akes intensely interesting reading. The sponsors for this surprising set are:

"Salome" and the daring novel of Lon

don high life and low life, "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and the play called "Vera, or the Nihilists," where human love and passion is in confilict with the cool calculalations of anarchism. Such versatility is part of the sensation surrounding this conspicuous publishing en

enterprise.

Не

There is something irresistible about Oscar Wilde. Was it because he is the author of so many witty and penetrating epigrams? would say:

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

"A saint has a past, a sinner has a future."

"The happiness of a married man depends on the woman he has not married."

"Wickedness is invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others."

Or was it because he wrote the greatest ballad in English literature. No-these are true-but Oscar Wilde's greatest attraction lies in his sparkling style that plays with the great truths of lifehumorous and tragic-in such a compelling way that he fairly rivets your attention. That makes people want his books.

Now the works of Wilde, scattered to the four winds at his downfall, finally are recovered-from overseas publishers, from friends, from papers. The twelve covers of this unusual edition will encompass all this storehouse of enchanted literature.

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE

& CO.,

Dept. W-476 Garden City, N. Y.

FOR INSPECTION.

FREE EXAMINATION

-

Please send the new edition of Oscar Wilde. My name (unless I request he name of a friend) is to be imprinted in Old English Sepia style. Within a week I will either return the books or send you $3 first payment and $3 a month until the special price of $39 is paid. (Cash discount 5%.)

Name

Address

References

Olympians

Natives of Cherbourg, France, are accustomed to seeing a towering ocean liner anchor off their low-lying shore. Familiar to them are the fussy tenders that cuddle under the great ship's flanks to receive issuing streams of scurrying men.

But unfamiliar are the Gauls, seeing the much-laden tenders labor shoreward, with hearing a mighty shout go up to Heaven, with hearing an answering roar from the U. S. S. Pittsburgh, with seeing some ⚫300 picked American athletes spring ashore to the blaring strains of Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here and The Stars and Stripes Forever.

America's 1924 Olympic team, safely landed, entrained for their chateaux at Rocquencourt and Colombes; pulled out of the Cherbourg station, flinging pennies, nickels, dimes to a

curiosity-loud populace. Set down at their chateaux, they unpacked their luggage, recovered their land-legs, settled down to a fortnight of final conditioning. The swimmers went off to swim, gently at first. The runners loped, tentatively. The muscular mastodons perspired. Meanwhile another ocean liner moved out of New York harbor to plow her long furrow eastward over the Atlantic. Appropriately named the Homeric, this ship bore more of America's cohorts to Olympian conflict in the distant land. On her decks lounged the famed Yale crew who, with their slender octoreme, had been rushed aboard still panting from victorious exertions against Harvard on the Thames (TIME, June 30).

Other passengers on the Homeric focused much of their attention upon the chieftain of those eight bluebroidered heroes. Ed Leader, crafty coach, did not pass unobserved. "Al" Lindley, brainy, bespectacled strokesetter, moved tall and silent down the decks. But the cynosure was James S. ("Jass") Rockefeller, Yale and Olympic crew captain.

Great-nephew of the wizard-of-oil, son of William G. Rockefeller, grandson of James Stillman, this stalwart scion of honorable American lines, gazed, brooding, on the horizon. Bending among his men on a mid-thwart, he had swept with them to shouting triumphs on home waters. Now he led them forth-the bronze-skinned ones to conquer the oarsmen of the world, as warlike Menelaus led the bronze-greaved Argives against Troy of old. Would his heart and theirs be stout enough? Could he counsel and exhort them to his Nation's glory?

Arthur Brisbane, famed editorialwriter, pictured Rockefeller haranguing his men on The Psychology of Attempting the Impossible, a favorite and perfected theme of his astonish

ing great-uncle; pictured him stirring them with winged words, plucked bright and burning from the original Greek of the first Olympic leaders.

"Remit naught of your fierce ardor!" he may cry in mid-Seine. Or, in the lockers ere the race begins:

"Subjects for disgrace, are ye not ashamed? Why stand ye here astounded, like fauns. . . ?”

Lurid flames in Rocquencourt village disturbed the sleeping athletes their first night in France. Many sprinted, for help, rescued victims, calmed demoralized inhabitants.

Golf

British Open. Sleek, smiling, lavender-knickered, rubber-soled Walter Hagen padded softly across the 18th green at Hoylake, England, chipped from the clover, holed a six-foot fallaway putt, kissed his wife, was chaired to the clubhouse-British open champion for the second time in three years. Last year Hagen fell a single putt short of the same gesture.

Play was led at 147 the first day by E. R. Whitcombe, popularly ranked as Britain's second best (after exchampion A. G. Havers). Play was still led, at 302, for 72 holes, by Whitcombe, until sleek "Walto" added up his 301 and shook hands with everybody. It was a brilliant "victoree," it re-convinced golfdom that beneath "Walto's" glossy and bond-salesman manner there lie rock-ribbed nerves and a truly sporting temperament. Scores: (Par is 76, record 70). *Hagen 77 73 74 77-301 E. R. Whitcombe......77 70 77 78-302 *Macdonald Smith ..76 74 77 77-304

Frank Ball J. H. Taylor Geo. Duncan *Jim Barnes

.........

.76 77 74 77-304

.75 74 79 79-307

*American.

ne of which sufficed him for the ntire 13th hole.

- Intercollegiate.

At Greenwich, onn., the qualifying field of collegite golfers found itself seven strokes ehind six-foot Lauren Upson of Calfornia. His 145 strokes included nine holes in 3 and two in 2.

To Yale went the team match; Dartmouth second, Harvard third, Princeton fourth.

Match play suited Upson until the emi-final. There he became impaled in the putter of W. H. Taft of Dartnouth, who promptly sank back 6 and before the Nordic siege-gunner, Dexter Cummings, defending chamion. To the Intercollegiates a twowear victory was unique.

Milk Fund

"We want milk!" cried the poor children of Manhattan.

"We want blood!" cried the public. Ten strong men were found to acerate one another in the Yankee Stadium. The children were fed; the Dublic gorged.

The chief lacerators were Harry Greb, untiring Pittsburgh dervish, and Ted Moore, British challenger for Greb's world's middleweight boxing itle. Moore's "beak"* and "button"t afforded the champion 15 rounds of Earget practice with few interruptions.

Staggering blindly, Ermino Spalla, Italian Colossus, sought refuge on the Hoor from the rude jars dealt him by Gene Tunney, American lightheavyweight champion; was declared technically unconscious in the seventh Tound.

Old Black Joe Gans, his head bending low, heard no gentle voices calling as he parted painfully with his "colored middle-weight championship." What he heard, and felt, was the "sock, sock" of dusky Larry Estridge's hard-driven mittens.

Young Stribling, truant "Georgia schoolboy," flashed to a decision over Tommy Loughran, Philadelphia lightheavyweight. Two heavy nonentities padded out the program.

Figures: Attendance, 45,000; gate, $200,000; for the Milk Fund, $75,000.

College Tennis

At Haverford, Pa., furious lefthanded service, an upward-ripping backhand like Gerald Patterson's, crashing overhead blows stopped all the collegiate courtsmen who pitted themselves singly against much tanned Wallace Scott of the University of Washington. Arnold W. Jones of Yale, the other finalist, was dismayed by the ball's perpetual presence on his side of the net.

Lone Star Staters, Lewis White and Louis Thalheimer of Texas University, kept jealous guard of their doubles title.

*Nose. †Chin.

Low Taste

In Manhattan, it is to the New York American (Hearst) and the Daily News (Chicago Tribune Co.) that sensation-mongers, scandal-gluttons and other addicts of "the pandering press" turn to gratify their low tastes. To The New York World and other papers, a higher class of reader turns for "legitimate" news, vigorous editorials, tasteful "quality" advertising.

Many were the readers of the World on June 29 who, beholding the following advertisement in its columns, turned startled eyes to their paper's title-line to discover if their newsdealer had not made some mistake:

Just Published!

"THE PRICE OF THINGS" by Elinor Glyn,

author of "Three Weeks"

Here is a novel that will open your eyes! Each succeeding chapter grows more daring. From the Magic Pen of Elinor Glyn flows a throbbing tale of audacious characters, startling incidents, sensational situations, daring scenes, thrill after thrill! So realistic is the charm, the fire, and the passion of this fiercely-sweet romance, that the hot breath of the hero seems to fan your face. Your blood races madly at the unconditional surrender of the delicious heroine. You kiss her madly and seem to draw her very soul through her lips!

When Frank I. Cobb, Editor of The New York World, died last December, TIME printed excerpts from some of his most noteworthy editorials. His editorials were the kind that did not lose their flavor with their timeliness. Now they have been collected in a book, Cobb of the World.*

Laurence Stallings, his assistant, told apropos of the appearance of the vol

FRANK I. COBB "Republican leadership is bankrupt"

ume some of the facts of Cobb's last days:

"The last memory I shall have of Frank Cobb was on the day following Harding's death. He was propped up on his bed, for he was in steady, enduring pain. For a lifetime he had surveyed the forces at play about him with a vigor almost unprecedented in journalism, a profession wherein only the vigorous survive. I had gone to his house that he might dictate to me a few notes to his colleagues on the succession of Mr. Coolidge to the Presidency.

"Cobb of The World was dying, and he knew it. He sat there among his pillows, wracked, without a thought of himself. It was literally true, Cobb of The World was thinking of the world. He said to me: "Theodore Roosevelt, succeeding to William McKinley as President, fell heir to an almost perfect party machine, which never in his time failed to function. Today Republican leadership is bankrupt, rent by faction, oppressed by mutterings of revolt.'"

Press Agentry

Press agents are the product of ethics in journalism, just as criminals are the product of law in govern

ment.

When newspapers were in infancy,

COBB OF THE WORLD-Edited by John L. Heaton (his colleague)-Dutton ($3.50); limited edition ($10.00).

in infancy which knows no morals they made no distinction between advertising and news. For pay or for influence, they advertised in the form of news whatever they chose. Now the larger papers, having acquired a sense of responsibility to their readers, sedulously rule out of their news columns all advertisements. This led to the development of press agents, who manufactured news that would render incidental advertisement. With a detective eye the best newspapers watch and reject this stuff.

Last week, however, several leading editors were apparently outwitted by a press agent. A man, who signed himself "John Cromartie," wrote to the Director of the Bronx Zoo, New York City, and suggested that the Zoo was incomplete without a specimen of the human race, and offered himself for exhibit in the monkey house. The New York Times printed this information and reported what the Zoo-Director said he had replied to the offer:

"As an honest and upright citizen, with no police record and with no axe to grind at some other man's expense, you would be a perfectly legitimate exhibit here alongside our upright apes and bounding baboons from the African outdoors. But it will not do to install you here, as your presence would be denounced as a reproach to the majority of the proletariat and an insult to predatory man.

"The minority is too weak to defend you, even on the basis of a harmless, but necessary, educational exhibit. It can not now defend itself. The times, and possibly the world and sun also, are out of joint."

A similar offer was received by a Zoo-Director in Boston. Arthur Brisbane, Hearst editor and omnivorous reader, saw this and of course commented. It remained for Franklin P. Adams (F. P. A.), of The New York World, to remark:

'Here's one original thought,' writes Mr. Brisbane in The American. John Cromartie, citizen of New York, writes to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, saying he'd like to be exhibited in the monkey house with the other primates, to show how much man resembles the ape.' It is, as Mr. Bris bane so well puts it, an original thought. Original, it must be added, with Mr. David Garnett, author of the just-published A Man in the Zoo.* By a strange coincidence Mr. Garnett hit upon the name John Cromartie also. And Mr. Cromartie had himself ex hibited in a cage in the Royal Zoological Gardens, London, with this card on it: 'Homo Sapiens, MAN. This specimen, born in Scotland, was presented to the Society by John Cromartie, Esq. Visitors are re quested not to irritate the man by personal remarks. Oh, well, even Mr. Brisbane can't read everything.

The press agent, if such he was, had succeeded in outwitting the combined intelligences of two ZooDirectors, the City Editor of The New York Times, Arthur Brisbane, an editorial-writer on the New York Herald-Tribune, and doubtless several

others.

A MAN IN THE Zoo-David GarnettKnopf ($1.75) was reviewed in TIME, June 30,