The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-02-17

'S know one dog well, and understand 1. Here on my desk I find a letter from Celia Elmyra Pegues, Mary Jane Place, Sycamore Hill, Mansfield, Louisiana. I write it all down because 1t makes such Q beautiful sound when you say 1t. How could anyone have a more perfect name and address? .. and think al. most every member of the Pegues family in America (not a large tribe) has written me since wrote about my congenial ana scholarly neighbor, Albert shipp Pegues, professor of English .. Helen Goodhue, of the stage, comes in to bring greetings from her mother, one of my favorite Washington, D. O., people, and friend of many years ... A month never passes without somebody's asking me how much you have to pay to get into Who's Who in America, or the International Who's Who. Wei. just try buying your way in, and see what happens So Daugh- ter Mary has been home for a weekend, bringing her school friend, Helen Martin, from Prov idence. And how we love to have such companyl Say what you will Of the youthful generation, I've never known more wholesome. natural and unpretentious girls than these friends Mary brings home from Pembroke I really don't fear that the human race is going to pot at all and If the few fanatics who want to destroy religion in order to start a brave new world could read my mail for one day, they'd give 1t up as a hopeless job. This Is @ religious country, in the best sense of that word, and if you don't think SO you're badly informed.
 They tell me Percy Crosby pulls down $2,000 Q week for drawing '"Skippy," yet his great desire is to De an author. To me, 1t seems that If could draw that way Id never want to do anything else. I'd even go around drawing pic- lures for fun. J. B. Smith a machinery man of St. Louis, signs himself J. Buttermilk Smith, after telling me that he and his family drink buttermilk all the time but he's never found any as good as his grandmother used to make on the farm in Menard County, Ill. ,, and I wonder if there is any devotion in the world quite like that Of 8 grown man for the grandmother who loved and cod- dled him as @ lad. It was my mis- fortune never to know either of my grandmothers, but some of the soundest citizens I know speak with reverence and fondness of grandmothers, living and dead. i. Jim Fully, the writer, has a way of inspiring writers, making them work merely by telling them how good they are. and that's Q system that's hard to beat, I've noticed.
 Fannie Hurst, the novelist, has the most original and successful taste in headgear of any cele- brated woman I've met. I saw her the other evening wearing gray hat that looked like @ wide, flat bow in front. Not @ good de- scription, ladies, I know, but be lieve me, 1t was stunning. I'm told she designs her own hats and gets a kick out of beating the stylists to an idea by a season or SO. A Missouri girl, you know, with an urge to show 'em!
 While I'm talking so inexpertly on dress, about which know as little as anybody in the world, permit me to observe that gray haired women are dressing more becomingly during recent years than they ever had before. Some- body must have discovered that lively colors aren't against the law for women who have gray or white in their hair. can remef1l- Der when women used to go into solemn black and stay that way, just as soon as they found gray hairs in their heads.
 Now I see women in New York who look so stunning in their bright clothes and gray hair that often suspect they've been putt ting the gray in by some secret process, just so they can look that way and wear those clothes.
 Well I better quit before the ladies all start laughing, because I'm sure to make Q pebble every time start talking about wo- mems clothes!
 There's been @ marked falling off in the number of quack for- tune-tellers calling themselves psychoanalysis in New York dur ing the last two or three years. The word psychoanalyst some- how appealed to nerve-wracked persons who couldn't figure 1t all out and wanted some sort Of super-human guidance. There was no law that made 1t a crime for any auack to use 1t. So the shingles blossomed along the fringes of Park avenue, where stock market troubles might be expected to make mental nipples. The real psychoanalysts mostly ceased using the word, and called themselves psychiatrists or just doctors.
 The quacks are still reaping their harvest among the confused and distressed, but they've thought up e lot of new titles for themselves.
 Copyright, 1889, Mcsausht Sym dicate.)
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