THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE

By Alan Jay Lerner . . . W.W. Norton & Co.

In this success-blinded country, anyone who carves out a small measure of it is apt to be regarded as all-wise and omniscient. It is especially true if success brings with it a respectable amount of coin of the realm. It is only since the forties, when hit plays began running for years and there were countless road companies and productions abroad, that authors began entering the higher income brackets. It is not a coincidence that, simultaneously, their status radically rose in the eyes of the public. A long accepted national axiom has been that money equals wisdom. Never mind that some of the most narrow-minded idiots I have ever incountered are successful buninessmen. To the rest of their fellow-men a millionaire is a genius. A misanthropic millionaire is called eccentric. An inventor is only crazy until his invention becomes a household essential . . . It so happens that as it is possible to have a talent for playing the tuba and nothing else, it is also possible to have a talent for making money and nothing else.