Books: Gilded Grandpa

NINE LIVES WITH GRANDFATHER—Stephen Longstreet—Julian Messner ($2.50).

In the spring his oldest daughter-in-law would look the old man in the eye : "Well, Gramp . . . What are you going to wear tomorrow in the Easter parade?"

"Clothing," the old gentleman would reply. "I'm too old to look good naked."

Cursing the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goulds and their ilk, as well as the hillbilly Confederate Longstreets who claimed relationship, Grandpa was a tyrant who made Clarence Day's father seem effete. Whether or not he was actually "the greatest living American," he did have a variety of...