People: Angles

“Mrs. Nesbitt is truly kind to all of us,” commented Columnist Eleanor Roosevelt as she reviewed her ex-housekeeper’s White House Diary (TIME, Aug. 2). “It is true she didn’t always like all of our friends and some of the visitors seem to have been a real trial, but so far as my husband and myself and the children are concerned she was certainly a very charitable and generous friend . . . I always got on well with Mrs. Nesbitt. My husband became difficult about his food in the last few years . . . The greatest sacrifice which Mrs. Nesbitt made for him was working with his mother’s cook, whom he kept after Mrs. Roosevelt’s death in 1941 . . . Some of my time was spent mediating between Mrs. Nesbitt and Mary, the cook, who had her own kitchen on the top floor of the White House. When I was away, Miss Thompson took over the job of mediating. One of my daughters-in-law used to worry a great deal about White House food, which she did not consider very good, and as I had never been able to pretend that I knew anything about food, I had to be very humble about her criticisms . . . I was very grateful when our daughter joined our household after her husband went overseas, because she could interpret what had then become Franklin’s whims far better than I could.”

In Gainesville, Fla., Pulitzer-Prizewinning Novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rowlings (The Yearling) was ordered to pay damages to Zelma Cason, who had complained that Novelist Rawlings had put her in Cross Creek and thus invaded her privacy. The damages: $1. The court costs, which Novelist Rawlings also had to pay: $1,050.

In Havana, Ernest Hemingway was interviewed by Prensa Libre, which at last revealed the subject of the novel Hemingway has been writing at the past six years. “It’ll be about the earth, the air, and the sea.” Added Prensa Libre: “Hemingway is a complex figure without precedent. Quite a few regard him as the reincarnation of Benvenuto Cellini.

In Cannes, Columnist Elsa Maxwell helped Producer Jack Warner clean up at chemin de fer. “I was sitting . . . by his side . . . and I started to move,” wrote Elsa. “He showed the only signs of superstition I’ve ever seen in him. ‘Don’t uncross your legs, honey,’ Jack warned.” She said she stuck it out for an hour and Jack won a million francs.