Have you noticed? Our satirists
are doing their best to beat
more dust of hilarity from the
grounded magic carpet of the
New American Government. But an
appetite which has expired is a
tough one to appease; and one
can't be sure it's the fault,
evidently even they have seen
the corpse. If the first duty
of a menace is to be credible,
the first one of despotism is
to hold the pose for Voltaire.
Heaven knows, Palm Beach always
had been somewhat thus. A com-
munity founded by migration is
never going to resemble one in
place before rails. More and
more the pretenses of the NAG
recall ever more loudly this in-
teresting tardiness in its path-
etic fumblings for greatness, as
if it were just noise and steam.
And yet, earnestness claims per-
haps the heaviest toll. The four
dollar magazine cover of the week,
suspiciously possibly of the year,
is not of a ruinous goon, but the
gathering of reluctant faces, all
bearing a set and sodden stamp of
