THE EMBATTLED PHILOSOPHER (442 pp.) Lester G. CrockerMichigan State College ($6.50).
French Philosopher Denis Diderot had the intellectual brilliance that sparkled in an 18th century drawing room, but he sometimes found less conventional ways to display his native gifts. When a lady painter who was doing his portrait objected that his clothes hid his neck, the eminent thinker silently retired behind a curtain and reappeared a moment later "as naked as a worm."
"I should never have dared to suggest it," the lady painter fluttered, "but you have done well and I thank you."
Many a woman probably said the same thing to dashing...