The whole letter column of the Saturday Review of Literature was taken up by one letter. The letter-writer was one Gustave Lamartine, onetime head of the French Academy of Design. He had quite a tale to tell: 1) he had made a 50,000-franc wager with one Max Gerhardt, Austrian hat designer, that he could design a preposterous hat and get women to wear it; 2) he had won the bet. Wrote he:
"[The hat] was not even a head-covering, since it was almost flat and had to be pinned to the top of the head to remain fixed. Onto this grotesque...
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