Penguin Persons & Peppermints

Twenty-five essays by an American drama critic who liked small subjects. Eaton opens by admitting that nobody can write a personal essay anymore without being accused of imitating Charles Lamb, then does it anyway. The title comes from a Ruskin letter about going to the British Museum to look at penguins until his temper cooled; Eaton gives that same quality, which he calls Penguinity, to the friends who keep him from taking life too seriously. Elsewhere he plays Schubert on the piano with one finger, argues that Fifth Avenue shop windows are an immoral force, counts the many times he gave up golf forever in one season, and makes a case for a poet nobody reads, Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. The settings move between Berkshire country and New York, and the writing stays closer to talk than to argument.