BONNET AND SHAWLPhilip GuedallaPutnam ($3.50).
Longfellow, distinctly out of fashion at the moment, wrote sententiously to the effect that lives of great men all remind us we can make our own sublime and departing leave behind us footprints in the sands of time. By substituting "wives" for "lives" sprightly Guedalla makes wicked point to the dreary platitude, and proceeds to silhouet six Victorian wives against the conspicuous background of their husbands.
By way of sharpening the contrast, already glaring, between Gladstone and Disraeli, he pictures two extremes in Mary Anne Disraeli, loquacious, garish, flighty; and Catherine Gladstone, industrious, charitable, but merry withal. Nothing...
