Twist

An astute observer once remarked: "No man is a hero to his valet." Disillusioned feminists have substituted the word "wife" for "valet." Not so Nathalie Sedgwick Colby, who last week uttered an enthusiasm: "He is my husband; he is far too colossal a person to be encompassed in any single book."

The colossal husband in this case is Bainbridge Colby, Manhattan lawyer. In fact, history might have neglected Mr. Colby, had he not been needed by certain bigwigs. Mark Twain used him as a lawyer; Theodore Roosevelt needed him as Presidential booster in 1912; Woodrow Wilson made him Secretary of State for the final year, after two others had been tried and found disagreeable. Perhaps Mr. Colby used to say to his wife: "Now if I had been President Wilson. . . ."

Mrs. Colby had reason to talk of herself as well as her husband last week. She had published a novel* with a political twist. Some said she had used her husband as one of the characters. Hence, her "colossal" and emphatic reply, to which she added:

"I had expected his dignity and power would "protect him from such ridiculous inference. Nothing in the book represents any person or persons I know."

Wives of lawyers and mothers of three daughters do not, as a rule, write novels, so Mrs. Colby proceeded to tell a bit about herself and her work: "This is my first novel. . . . How did I come to write it? Oh, I don't think I can tell you that. You see, I believe these things just come out of the subconscious mind. ... I write in longhand and I am so messy about it that each chapter has to be re-written a dozen times. I don't think I could use a typewriter-- the hammering would distract my mind."'

Undistracted, Mrs. Colby has another novel, Back Stream, coming off the presses later this year; she is at work on a third.

*GREEN FOREST--Nathalie Sedgwick Colby -- Harcourt, Brace ($2). (To be reviewed in a future issue of TIME.)