Books: 40 Strenuous Years

THE LETTERS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, VOLS. I & II (1,549 pp.)—Edited by Elting E. Morison—Harvard University ($20).

"My Dear Mamma," wrote nine-year-old Theodore Roosevelt in 1868, "I have just received your letter! What an excitement. How nice to read it. What long letters you do write. I don't see how you can write them."

So begins the first two volumes of a projected eight-volume set of Theodore Roosevelt's own lengthy letters. Before long, the reader is apt to wonder if the ebullient T.R. was not born with a pen grasped firmly in hand. Certainly, few men in or out of public life...