Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  Two or three times during these proceedings I was tempted to ask why, if the pamphlet was to be an extension and an interpretation of the President’s formula, we shouldn’t just go and ask him what he meant. But I shut up about that. My own position through all these conferences was really awfully embarrassing—all these bigwigs who had given up their time and taken long rail journeys, to talk about abstract matters, and they kept glancing at me to be sure that I was getting the full significance of what they had gone to so much trouble to contribute. A lot of it was just nonsense. I mean, I don’t think there is much sense in calling a meeting of super-intellects on a Sunday morning in the Library of Congress to discuss freedom of speech for a pamphlet which is to instruct and inspire filling station helpers and manicurists mostly. It struck me that it was simply MacLeish investing his own job with some velvet trappings. Freedom of speech is old stuff and the record is pretty clear and available. It was rather disheartening (at that particular session) to see how much acrimony could be developed over fine and delicate points among men who were, presumably, all striving for the same good end. I’m afraid the word Supreme has been a very unfortunate thing in Frankfurter’s life—although I never knew him before, and don’t really now. He was very anxious to get off the phrase: “steering between vapidity and indiscretion.” But I felt he had been working on it for quite some time.

  Well, I love my country and I like to live free, and so I haven’t given up the job yet. But the nervous strain of the preliminary rounds was too much for my stomach, and all the old dizziness and vapors returned to plague me. Living at the Riggs’ was a little difficult because they had only just moved in and had no furniture or cook. But Mrs. Rigg is terribly nice, and I was glad to be there.2 Whenever Bun needs money, he gives a pint of blood and gets 25 dollars. Then he eats apricots to make more blood. . . .

  I think the person for MacLeish on this job is Gypsy Rose Lee. She could handle it better than I’ll be able to. Lots of love to you and Joey.

  Andy

  To JOHN R. FLEMING

  Hotel New Weston

  New York, New York

  [February 5?, 1942]

  Thursday

  Dear Jack:

  Got your stuff today, and thanks. That issue of the Land Policy Review has bucked me up enormously because of a little filler at the bottom of page 24, where it says:

  The keeping of sheep has made characters so strong, so brave, manly, and true that they have changed the history of the world.

  That gave me courage to go ahead. After all, I still have three weeks before the lambs begin to come, and the history of the world (if tonight’s World-Telegram can be believed) badly needs changing.

  Lots of love,

  Andy

  To KATHARINE S. WHITE

  Hotel New Weston

  [February 8, 1942]

  Sunday morning

  Dear K

  Whatever else comes of this job, I certainly don’t want you and Joe to delay coming to town. I’m more anxious about Joe’s health1 than I am about Batavia, and more eager to see you than to save the world. (The chances are better, too.) As far as disturbing a writer at his work, this hotel bedroom might just as well have been filled with howling monkeys this past week, for all the work I’ve been able to get done. . . .

  Jim has kept phoning me (I guess he keeps phoning everybody these days) and I finally went up to his house last night, where there were an English major and a DeGaullist and their wives and we had a long international discussion, from which Jamie left the world in smouldering ruins as usual. . . . Jim is very grey, but is lively and in pretty good spirits. Helen gave him a mandolin for Christmas, and I pleased him by being able to play it, tremolo and all.

  I shall finish up my Harper piece today, turn it in tomorrow and get started on the other job. Had lunch with Mike Galbreath the other day and they are expecting a baby next month.

  Lots of love and please don’t put off coming, as it is a ridiculous idea. Unsound.

  Love,

  Andy

  To KATHARINE S. WHITE

  Hotel New Weston

  New York, New York

  [February 9, 1942]

  Monday

  Dear K

  We are invited to the Saxtons for Monday evening, which I am recording so that I won’t forget.

  Gene says my book is eligible for the Harper prize. From the tone of his voice, I should say that its chances are something less than good, or terrible.

  At his house last night I described in great detail the rejuvenation of the Brooklin Library (by you) and everybody was much interested and enthusiastic about Miss Dollard.1 Also Nathaniel Peffer was much interested in Aunt Poo, as well he might be.2

  Love,

  Andy

  To JOHN R. FLEMING

  25 W 43

  New York City

  [February 21?, 1942]

  Saturday

  Dear Jack:

  Report to the nation—

  The piece is pretty near done, and I think Washington’s Birthday will see it completed. I don’t believe Washington himself ever faced greater odds than I have faced in trying to pull so many shades of opinion into a harmonious design. I would rather try to throw a dollar across the Potomac. Make it two dollars.

  After the piece is done, it will have to go through my typewriter again, to take off some rough edges, introduce a little grammar, and destroy the last trace of pretty writing. That will mean another couple of days. I think, then, that I can send you something by about the 24th or 25th of this month. I had hoped to get it written more promptly, but for a solid week I was too sick to work, and the rest of the time I’ve been worrying about my boy, who is now here with me in New York for treatment.

  You might pass this word along to Marty [Summers], or to Archie, or to whoever is doing most of the wondering where some results are.

  See you soon,

  Andy

  To JOHN R. FLEMING

  The New Yorker

  25 West 43rd Street

  New York

  2 March 1942

  Dear Jack:

  I sent off the draft by mail to Henry Pringle on Sunday and trust that it has arrived in your office by this time and has sent everybody into gales of laughter.

  I expect to be in New York for another ten days or until the doctor gets through doing what he wants to do with Joe. So if I am wanted in Washington to do any more work on the four freedoms, will you let me know as soon as you can. I presume that from now on it will be a matter of undoing White and pinning freedom’s pants up again—for which work my services will be far from needed.

  The job was pretty tough going, partly because of my ignorance and partly because (from the evidence contained in my notes) the experts managed to cancel each other out and the net result was nobody wanted to say anything on the subject. This left me holding a very odd bag indeed and my attempt to make Milo Perkins and Ham Fish Armstrong into bedfellows using Malcolm’s bed will probably take its place alongside those countless other desperate sorties which honest patriots are making these days in their zeal to keep the faith.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  P.S. You asked in your letter about expense money. I turned in some railroad receipts to your man, but have not heard anything yet. My application form may have been unsatisfactory, as I failed to fill in the part about having been in jail. Figured it would be bad publicity for your office.

  To JOHN R. FLEMING

  The New Yorker

  25 West 43rd Street

  New York

  15 April [1942]

  Dear Jack:

  Thanks for the kind words.

  Can’t tell you much about what happened to the four freedoms. I saw one of them on 44th Street the other day. Undressed her with my eyes and found her beautiful.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To HARRY LYFORD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  19 April 1942

  Dear Private:

 
. . .Your life as small town editor sounds fine—the sort of thing I once thought maybe I would be doing (until I fell in with city slickers and other evil characters in Gotham). You spoke of the “upward grope of the community.” Do communities grope upward? I’ve often wondered. Much of the time they seem just to grope. I am in a little town that is, in a sense, dying on its feet. Last year, one child was born (there are about 700 inhabitants, scattered over quite a large area). One baby. (There were two, as a matter of fact, but only one with proper credentials.) All the young men seem to feel that if they are to amount to anything, they must get out, go somewhere else. That seems wrong, somehow. Every community ought to offer a promising life to its new generation, it seems to me. I am a decentralist, at heart; I think the business of making the earth produce and bear fruit should be participated in by almost everybody—a much more even distribution of the population.

  Heavy snow here today, but it is disappearing fast. I sowed some seed in the field across the road, sowing it on top of “the last snow”—a traditional practice hereabouts. How anybody knows which is the last snow, I have never found out. Last spring it was still spitting snow in May.

  We all send loud thanks for the cheese. I can see now why you married a Swiss.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To EUGENE SAXTON

  North Brooklin, Maine

  25 April 1942

  Dear Gene:

  Here is the stuff for the front jacket flap, or flip, or whatever. It is slightly reworded here and there. I guess it’ll do very nicely now, if it’s OK with you.

  That crack about my being “one of our leading essayists” was put in by my wife, who was whistling to keep her courage up. For “one of our leading” read “only remaining.” She’s just scared.

  I hope I didn’t gum up everything by wiring you to kill the foreword. I don’t really care, one way or another, whether there is a foreword or not—I just didn’t want that one. I think the book should not be held up too long and will send you another foreword in a day or two. This time I promise it will stay sent.

  Sincerely,

  Andy

  Very balmy here today, lambs jumping, daffodils springing, and a warm summer breeze.

  To H. K. RIGG

  North Brooklin, Maine

  21 May [1942]

  Dear Bun:

  Glad to hear you’re fighting the war in the Marine Division.1 I’m fighting it with brown hens’ eggs, and waiting—a bit nervously—to be drafted. We’ve been having practice raids here, and I dash around the roads at night blowing a horn and feeling kind of silly. Am also learning to shear sheep. The sheep look as though they’d been through the siege of Corregidor when I get through with them. But wool brings a good price this year.

  Haven’t had time to miss Astrid yet but that will come later.2 Incidentally, ask Linton if he won’t send me the balance so we can wind up the deal. He wrote me in April saying he would, but I haven’t received it.

  Roger graduates from Harvard (we hope) this year, so I guess we’ll be entraining for Cambridge and class day very shortly. My Washington trips are over for the time being.

  Regards to all, yrs,

  Andy

  To EUGENE SAXTON

  North Brooklin, Maine

  28 May 1942

  Dear Gene:

  The author’s copies arrived this morning, along with some edible soy bean seeds, and I am dashing this off to tell you that I am delighted with the appearance of the book and think Harper’s has done very nicely by me. It looks like the kind of book I might like to read—although I wouldn’t know about that without skimming it through.

  So well satisfied am I with this book that I wish to place an order for 12 copies, to be sent to me at this address, and at the author’s discount. Send bill and I will send check.

  Am enclosing, for your amusement, a cutting from Page One of the Ellsworth American, to whom you sent a review copy. We don’t go in for criticism or subtle nonsense here; when a man has something to sell, we just say so, and in no uncertain terms.

  I see that Amy Loveman gave me a nice notice in the B of the MC News.

  Sorry you can’t be here for the dipping tomorrow. Am using an English dip (Cooper’s) which I like partly because it doesn’t stain the fleeces and mostly because the instructions on the package contain the word “whilst.”

  Yrs as ever,

  Andy

  To HAROLD ROSS

  North Brooklin, Maine

  20 September 1942

  Dear Mr. R.

  Thank you for your friendly and courteous letter, in regard to one thing and another. I am with you about the Underwood. My wife presented me with a brand new Underwood some months ago—one of the handsomest gestures she ever made—but to date I have not been able to make it spell out a single god damn word. I have worked over it, and under it, for hours at a time, but it is listless and impotent. I finally sent it to Bangor—or rather I took it there when I went up to see Lamour.

  As I wrote Shawn, I will try to do a little comment each week. I would like to do a great deal of comment, as it appears to be the way I am best fitted to earn a living, but it is almost impossible to write in my present situation. However, I will continue to devote some time to it. It should be very carefully watched, from your end, because I do not keep abreast of affairs, here, and am quite likely to say something which might sound very odd indeed in the light of what has been going on. Also, the war tends to make me (and everybody) lose my perspective, or grip. Writing any sort of editorial stuff about this universal jam that everyone is in, is for me a gruelling and rather frightening job, and I know what Gibbs means about the way he feels.

  I have been thinking about your suggestion that married men be given a chance to take an army examination, to relieve their mind. Of course it is what we would all like to have, but I doubt if we can expect the army to be that obliging. I guess the doctors are pretty busy just doing what they are doing. Also, the army naturally wants to examine a man at the time he is up for induction, not just any old time, and they wouldn’t want to do it twice. I’ll ponder this some more, but I suspect you are asking too much.

  One thing that continually amazes me about this regimented wartime life is the matter of strikes. We take it for granted that no man’s life is his own, any more—that is, the army can give him the nod and he has to leave home and family and put on a uniform and try to get ashore on the Solomons. He has no say-so about any of this. But another guy, in an airplane factory, can lay down his tools for a day or a week and thumb his nose at the whole war in the name of organized labor. This seems to me completely inconsistent. Our whole industrial life has, in a sense, been drafted, yet we still go on babying the unions. Maybe I better ask Pegler about this.

  K just got a phone message from Roger’s girl (in Boston) that she and Roger are going to get married next week in Denver, where he is in the army. His commanding officer told him he would give him every night off for two weeks—a rather touching concession to l’amour on the part of our armed forces. I have a feeling the army is at bottom very sentimental. It’s going to be a slow war, but we’ll probably win it—with our girls at our sides.

  Yrs,

  EBW

  To EUGENE SAXTON

  North Brooklin, Maine

  20 September [1942]

  Dear Gene:

  I was glad to hear about the book. If it would just keep going for a little while, it would be a help.

  We are having our equinoctial storm tonight and I ought to be down on the dark and rain-swept shore, watching my boats come adrift from their moorings and pile up on the rocks at the head of the cove. So far, this month, we have had mostly fog and heat—very unseasonable for Maine. My pullets are housed and in production, going strong, and this week I am going to get a cow, a purebred Guernsey one of whose hips has slipped. I never realized that sometimes a cow’s hip drops down out of place, but it seems to be the case. Doesn’t seem to affect the cow’s spirits any. I don’t
know yet how it will affect mine.

  We still get just about enough gas to keep us on wheels for what we regard as essential errands, and so far I haven’t blown a tire. Joe has been made a patrolman at school, and is so moved by his new sense of authority that he wears his white belt and silver badge even when he is at home, off duty. He had a good summer at camp and came home looking well. . . .

  Love to you and Martha from us all,

  Andy

  To KATHARINE S. WHITE

  North Brooklin, Maine

  [Sept. 29, 1942]

  Tuesday morning

  Dear K:

  . . .Bill Henderson is here this morning, and a new plank floor is under construction for Sukey [the cow] who has been eating little apples and may not live to see the new home. At the moment, however, she seems robust, and no nearer fresh than when you left. I am on easier terms with her, now, and we go out together on the same rope with some familiarity. The kitten is fine and gets along all right until Fred and Raffles act jointly, when there is hell to pay.

  Saw Frank Hamilton this morning and he is working on the problem of changing our watch—or says he is. We had frost last night but not a killing one, and the flowers are still lovely. I moved your plants into the plantroom from the barn because it seemed cool enough indoors for anybody or thing. Told Bill Henderson this morning that you were on your way to Denver1 and he said: “That would be hard work for me, I despise to go anywhere. I’d rather dig a ditch than go to Ellsworth.”

  We had the mobilization last night and for all I know everything went off all right, and very snappy—it was all over within an hour. Joe and I had supper at 5 o’clock and were all ready when the call came. There was an incident in front of Gott’s store, which seemed to involve Jean Redmond and Hollis Gray, and the public health nurse showed up from Bluehill. Ken [Parson] says he is going to keep all incidents in the center of town, to save rubber. I trust our enemies will do the same.