There is more than amusement in Miss Doris Langley Moore's
Pandora's Letter Box (Gerald Howe, 7s. 6d.). Her volume, as we learn in the sub title, is "A Discourse on Fashion- able Life," a description of the eccentricities of our Bright Society. Pandora is two years old : perhaps in another twenty years she will not be too self-occupied to spare a thought for an older generation ; and if she wishes to know something of our ephemera, these letters, written with brilli- ance, wit and author4v, will surety be her most candid guide. But though the writer is never heavy-handed, her book has greater virtues than these. She gives evidence, from time to time, of having seen fashion itself sub specie aeternitatis, as one of the shaping forces in human history, despotic, unreasonable, and volatile ; calling for martyrdoms cheerfully undergone ; moving people to the strangest deeds ; yet crystallizing, in its own manner, the ideals of a generation, and preserving them for the contemplation of posterity.
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