Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  While he was picnicking, I sailed Astrid around from Center Harbor back to Allen Cove, with Ted, Nan,1 Lucy, and Ted’s sister Marion. . . . Nan brought knitting and rove the yarn through the mainsheet. Ted was all helpfulness, in his strange tutorial way. Lucy steered. I prayed to God nobody would fall overboard, managed to get the anchor on board, wove Astrid through the racing fleet, and finally got squared away. We had a good sail eventually, for we had a grand reach up Bluehill Bay, just strong enough to make it good sailing, without being troublesome. Nan was visited with nausea at the finish. She eats nothing now but Red Astrachans and cake—the Astrachans to make her thin, the cake because she can’t resist it. Mr. Keller will be cut for the stone next summer.

  I have named our barn Wil-Fan Lodge, in honor of Billy [the cock] and Fanny. There were terrific squawks from the region of the spring the other day, and I ran over with the horsewhip, to find that Bill had got one leg caught in a vine and was yelling his head off while Fred sat nearby, gently worrying him.

  On Labor Day the household was up early, dressed in its best. Jean and Madeline went off to the Fair,2 Joe and I to South Brooksville for luncheon. I believe that the Havenites had their usual chowder race that day, but I have seen none of them, so can’t report. Yesterday I staged my own chowder party and picnic on Long Island. It was a success, in [a] feverish way, and ran on into the second day. In fact I am just back from it. It was one of those characteristic picnic days—overcast, ominous, with a good deal of quiet thunder, including the Newberrys. The latter arrived at the crack of dawn, and we got aboard Astrid (with Howard [Pervear]) and started up the Bay to collect the Kellers and Mistress D——, who has long white hairs on her legs that I like to look at. I planned chowder, sweet corn, and cake, and got Madeline to give me explicit directions about the chowder. Two fine haddock lay in Astrid’s ice chest, ready to spring, and we had a big pot and onions and potatoes and butter and milk. The first premonitory drops of rain came as the Kellers came aboard at the Slaven stone pier. But there was blue sky in patches, so we sailed over to the Island and debarked, Astrid’s little girl making four trips ashore loaded to her gunwales. It then turned out that Ros had her own system about chowder, and had secreted in her purse some old pork scraps, which she insisted on brewing in my steel frying pan. She dumped this snarling mess into my beautiful chowder. The rain stopped and the heat danced along the beach. Kellers wandered everywhere, with things in their hands, and Miss D—— talked in a high, cute voice about going swimming with no clothes on. John left and did 572 strokes around Astrid, while Ros called “JOHN.” I was quietly furious about the pork scraps, and the chowder was fairly nasty, on top of a Manhattan. Nan had made a chocolate marshmallow cake. We left early to play tennis. At two-love the thunder really meant business, and you could hardly serve for the glare from the lightning. At last it struck, in the very saddle of the afternoon, and we all took shelter in the barn, where Herm Gray let us hold the teats of cows and squeeze. Meantime, Astrid lay tied up to the Slaven swimming float, which in turn was tied up to our old mooring. Nan disappeared into the storm to collect Elsa, who was visiting Joe. Ted disappeared to Ellsworth, to say goodbye to a relative. They were both back almost instantly, and there was the question about getting home. Howard brooded about his cows. Rosamond’s thoughts turned dimly to South Brooksville, and I said I couldn’t leave Astrid, as she was sagging in on the stone pier with the dropping tide. The Newberries said they would return to North Brooklin by car, if they could get anybody to take them—a suggestion which was met with shrieking approval by Miss D——, who whipped out a Ford sedan and was off down the road. I hung around the barn and made a date with Percy Moore, and then went down in the wet to Astrid. Nan and Ted, who knew Miss D—— of old because she had once swung on Ted and broke his glasses at a cocktail party at Nila’s, could hardly wait to see whether she would come back for a rendezvous with me aboard Astrid—which by this time was whipping about in a NE storm with her fanny just clearing the stone pier at each bound. I worked for thirty minutes in the downpour rowing a stronger line out to the mooring, after the first line had parted, and then drank a can of tomato soup and lay down, praying for surcease from picnics. Just as I was dozing off, Miss D arrived, true to form, with an apple pie and a Doberman pinscher, who sat outside and wailed. I put her ashore inviolate an hour later, but I’m sure Nan didn’t have a wink of sleep, and I acted wise and tired this morning when I showed up at the Kellers’ for breakfast. . . .

  Lots of love, and see you Sat.

  Andy

  • The year 1936 ended with White’s locking horns with Alexander Woollcott over the matter of testimonial advertising. Woollcott had sent a lot of letters to friends and acquaintances urging them to give him Seagram’s for Christmas, instead of an indestructible gift that he would have to “shove up in the attic.” White received one of the letters and dashed off an indignant piece. The New Yorker published it, together with the Woollcott letter, in its December 19 issue, under the heading “Open-Letters Department.” White wrote:

  DEAR ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT: About your request that we give you some Seagram’s eight-year-old imported bonded whiskey for Christmas, we’re sorry but it’s out of the question. Our gift for you is all bought, all wrapped up, ready to go by Western Union messenger to your home on Gracie Square. We have instructed the messenger just to look for a radiance in the sky, and follow it.

  Our gift, we are sorry to say, is indestructible. It is a tippet, lined with burrs. The tippet we got at Bonwit Teller’s, the burrs we picked ourself. It is depressing to us to learn that you eventually will “shove it up in the attic,” but many Christmases have inured us to the disappointments of giving and receiving. Many Christmases! How the phrase seems to spell the passing of time! Well, the holidays come and go; yet this Christmas of 1936, thanks to your thoughtful note, has been given an unforgettable flavor, has become a season pervaded with the faint, exquisite perfume of well-rotted holly berries.

  God rest ye and Seagram’s merry.

  EUSTACE TILLEY

  Ross, who alternately liked Woollcott and found him annoying, was delighted with the exchange of letters. Woollcott was angry. He recognized the touch behind the pen name “Eustace Tilley” and wrote White a letter defending his participation in endorsement advertising. The communications that follow are White’s answer.

  To ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT

  [New York]

  [December 1936]

  [Christmas card]

  Dear Woollcott:

  Serving the New Yorker in my capacity as jackanapes of all trades, I sometimes discover myself in the act of muddying up my friends and acquaintances—as in the case of you and the Seagram letter. I always throw myself into these discourtesies with a will, dreamily hoping to achieve heavenly grace through earthly impartiality. My wife tells me you are convinced that we maintain a Dept. of Animus; but my true belief is we have as little animus as is consistent with good publishing. In your case, my own animus, if any, was against the frantic society to which we all fall victim, in varying measure, and to which you lured my attention at this white season by your open affair with La Seagram. After all, a man’s personal excesses are his own business. Privately, I may wish you joy of the lady, but publicly I must give so lewd an alliance a jab, mustn’t I?

  With best wishes,

  E. B. White

  To ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT

  25 West 43rd Street

  24 December 1936

  Dear Woollcott:

  I agree that I ought to say why I feel the way I do about endorsements. Even if it makes me sound holier, which I deplore but don’t know how to avoid. Please note that I’m not speaking for Eustace Tilley, of which I am merely an arm, a leg, or a groin. I’m speaking for myself.

  In your letter you mention honesty and dignity. I don’t think endorsements are necessarily dishonest (certainly your letter spoke plainly enough), and I don’t give a whoop about dignity. But I am pretty sure of my distaste for the comm
ercial testimonial—find such things offensive, disappointing, disillusioning, on two counts. First, I am convinced that a testimonial, in effect and purpose, is a piece of snobbishness, the implication being that because the testifier is celebrated he is to be aped by the less distinguished citizenry. You will bristle at this, but I’m not accusing you of attempted snobbery: I’m just saying that, once in, you can’t help yourself. I once worked long and faithfully in an advertising agency; I know what the boys want, and what they got when they got you. When you, full of an idea, engage to write a piece for a publication, write it, and get paid, you are performing a literary or creative act and are being paid for the results of your talent and labor. When you, again full of an idea, write an advertisement for Seagram on your letterhead, what you are really selling is the name Woollcott, which is valuable to a commercial house because you had previously established yourself as a vivid person who could write and who was interesting and provocative to many people. Now, as one of your readers or as one of your acquaintances, or both, or neither, I object to your addressing me by way of a liquor house in whose debt you are. I feel patronized, and you seem suddenly discredited. When a Mrs. Vanderbilt, with her nails well polished and her hips pulled in, appears in a color page and gives her approval to Lucky Strikes, it reminds me of a Great Lady patting a child on the head and calling it a dear, or of a priest blessing the hounds on their way to the kill. I detest these condescensions and these vanities. Inherent in such an advertisement is the assumption that all shop girls should smoke Luckies and grow up to be a fine lady like Mrs. Vanderbilt. Inherent in your endorsement of Seagram’s was, first, the assumption that anyone who receives the letter would, of course, be impressed and honored with a Woollcott letter (if the advertising agency hadn’t thought this, they wouldn’t have approached you) and, second, that he would wish naturally to be guided by your preferences and predilections. This is the essence of the endorsement idea, and you can’t neutralize or destroy it merely by the wording of your letter or your frank admission that you are being corrupted and bribed.

  My other reason is the one that everything really hangs on: the importance of a writer’s maintaining his amateur standing. I don’t give much of a damn whether Mrs. Vanderbilt endorses or not, because I am not particularly engrossed in Mrs. Vanderbilt, what she does, wears, smokes, or thinks. I do, however, give a damn where your interests lie, and what your ties are; it seems important to me; it seems to have a bearing on many other things which are close to my life and my love. I have read you for years. When I heard you plead for civil liberty on the air, I was excited and moved by so eloquent and honest a shot fired toward what I know to be the enemy. When I run across your steady and loyal diligence in behalf of the blind, I feel good that there is still charity and gentleness round and about. I still cling (by my teeth these days) to the notion that writing is a trust, that you were born in Phalanx not as other Phalanxians but with a star over your head and an itch to get going. And that I was likewise, wherever I was born. Then in the midst of your writings comes a letter with a phony salutation and a printed signature, saying that you like Seagram’s whiskey. In itself, this document is certain[ly] harmless, guiltless. The harm to me the recipient (or the loss, rather) is that the next time I come across you, in the mail, in print, I feel I must be on my guard, must see what the catch is, may have to read half way through before I can determine whether this is an affiliated utterance or an unaffiliated utterance, and if I discover a paid allegiance, then must make the necessary allowances for the writer’s being in the hire of somebody. This, in my opinion, dissipates a man’s character, destroys a writer’s credit, gradually. When a signature is bought for its own sake, the matter above it becomes suspect.

  If your public approval of a trademarked product and your influence can be bought at a price, then, carrying the thing through to an extreme, it is fair for General Motors to try to buy the good will of, say, the Secretary of State, and it is fair for the Secretary to consider selling it. He has a public trust as a servant of the state, you have a public trust as an avowed servant of the Muse or of History or whatever you want to call the thing that you and I do in the world. Our allegiance should be to our constituency, and we shouldn’t grind axes as a sideline. That is the nub of my complaint.

  As to the New Yorker’s manner of handling your letter, I think it was cheesey, and I am the one to blame on that. Several people in the office converged on your letter (they came fluttering in like leaves, the letters did) and seeing how everybody felt and feeling that way myself, I went to work. The result was not so good. My own indignation and sorrow were tinged with bronchitis, which always makes me ugly.

  As to the juxtaposition of the whiskey ads, I can’t see that it has any bearing on the case. I am paid not by one whiskey house but by many (all of them chattering like monkeys) and I direct your attention to a chemical phenomenon: whiskey houses, in quantities, cancel each other out. The relation of a writer to the capitalistic press is itself a fascinating subject, but I don’t see that it is analogous to endorsement advertising. I admit I am in the employ of the Interests, indirectly; but I think you are being a little unfair to imply that ten years of my life can be suddenly undone by a Talon fastener. The New Yorker is something I love very much, and I don’t think I am practising self-deception in working for it.

  (Incidentally, as a stockholder you may be excited by a piece of news I have just this minute learned: I asked my favorite office boy what he was giving his girl for Christmas. He replied: “A ring set with three small diamonds, and a red velvet dress.”)

  I am emboldened to write this long, smug-sounding letter, full of how wonderful and right I am and how terrible and wrong you are, first because you asked for it, but more because the persons who have spoken to me about your endorsement have, almost to a man, seemed to feel either offended, shattered, enraged, or just plain startled. I recognize that there are also many other people who do not have any such prejudice or feeling about testimonials, but I think many of these used to resent them and gradually got hardened to them from the daily barrage. I certainly hate to be on the opposite side of the wall from Newton D. Baker, whom I admire greatly, but here I am.

  Sincerely,

  Andy White

  VI

  NOE MAN’S MEAT

  1937–1941

  * * *

  • White’s feelings about New York were mixed: he loved the city (a love he celebrated in many of his writings), but he often felt unfulfilled by urban life. (“The pavements were hard and there weren’t any broody hens.”) He was tired of working to a weekly deadline, and he yearned for the country. As early as February 1937, while still in town, he was laying plans for a setting of turkey eggs. Springtime without incubation seemed to him incomplete. That same year he tried taking a “year off” from job and family, but missed his wife and son too much and returned to New York after a few weeks. Finally, in 1938 he persuaded Katharine to pull up stakes and try living in North Brooklin all year round.

  For the family, the move to Maine meant some drastic rearranging, both emotional and financial. For Katharine it was particularly difficult. Her roots went deep at the magazine, and it was a wrench for her to give up her well-paying job as fiction editor and alter her close relationship with her stable of writers. Joel, on the other hand, needed no persuading. Even at the age of seven, he was convinced that boats and the sea were the answer to living.

  After settling in to their new life in the deep country both Whites managed to maintain close ties with The New Yorker. Katharine regularly received manuscripts and proofs in the mail, editing them on a part-time basis. She also continued to review children’s books. White turned out Newsbreaks every week, contributed Comment off and on, and submitted “casuals,” stories, and poems. Shortly before his departure from the city, however, White had formed a new publishing connection. Lee Hartman, editor of Harper’s magazine, had asked him to write a monthly department from the country. White had agreed to try it,
and they had settled on a payment of $300 a month. In July of 1938, White hit on the title “One Man’s Meat” and turned in the first of the essays he was to write without interruption for the next four and a half years. (On Hartman’s death in 1942, Frederick Lewis Allen took over as editor.)

  It is clear in retrospect that this “One Man’s Meat” interlude was not merely a change of habitat, it was a change in writing style. White was drifting into the informal essay—a form he gradually mastered. He felt at home in it and became one of its most skillful practitioners. It’s also clear that White’s love affair with the barn—his close relationship to sheep, hens, geese, pigs, rats, and spiders—was to bloom later in the story of Charlotte’s Web, a book that could never have been written by anyone lacking an emotional involvement in the lives of domestic animals.

  The period 1937–1941, although idyllic in prospect and escapist in nature, proved by no means a time of great contentment or of escape. It was, instead, a time of intense activity and spiritual unease. First the looming disaster in Europe, then the war itself, colored and darkened everyone’s life, and the Whites lived continuously in a state of doubt as to the validity and responsibility of life on a farm in times of such gravity. But however uneasy those years were, they were at least fruitful: two more books were published: The Fox of Peapack (poems) in 1938, and Quo Vadimus? (sketches) in 1939. In addition, White and his wife began, in 1940, to collaborate on A Subtreasury of American Humor, which was published in 1941 by Coward, McCann and soon found its way overseas, in an Armed Services Edition, to relieve the tedium of war for thousands of soldiers and sailors.

  To CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

  25 West 43rd Street

  12 January [1937]