Books: The Dim Brother

JOURNEY INTO THE SELF: BEING THE LETTERS, PAPERS AND JOURNALS OF LEO STEIN (331 pp.)—Edited by Edmund Fuller—Crown ($4).

Gertrude Stein was merely Leo Stein's tag-along sister for the first half of their lives: in Pittsburgh, where they were born; in Vienna and California, where they were brought up, and in Paris, where they went to live. Until they were in their 30s, it was Leo who was the clever one. He knew about ideas and he knew about pictures, and he told Gertrude. Then, to Leo's astonishment, Gertrude began to turn into a...