Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  Everybody has asked most solicitously for you and I spend quite a lot of time describing your Condition. The Algonquin people (I mean the staff people) apparently think about nobody much but you. They just wander around carrying napkins and things, thinking about you. . . .

  Later—post dentistry

  I am not to eat anything sticky in the left side of my mouth from now till Tuesday. Inasmuch as everything in New York is sticky, I should come out of this in a peculiarly emaciated condition. Dr. Miller keeps apologizing, as he drills. . . .

  Ross has just been in here to tell me that his daughter Patty is sailing for England at midnight tonight with her Mother on the Queen Mary. Patty just had Ross on the phone to ask him about his taking her to dinner, and she said: “Are we going to dinner alone?” Ross said yes, they were. “Oh, goody!” replied Patty. This now has Ross worried—to know why his daughter wants to dine with him alone. He sees something sinister or baffling in the arrangement. Apparently the last time Patty sailed, Ross presented her with some advance proofs of the Rebecca West Greenville piece, as a bon voyage present. This time she is demanding flowers. A wonderful family, the Rosses.

  I am debating whether to ask Ross to take me along to the sailing of the Mary, thinking maybe I could get something for the Holiday piece, but I guess I’ll just stick my head out the window at twelve and listen to the horn.

  New York seems to me less relaxed in summertime than it used to be. The place is full of tourists and hasn’t thinned out as much as I expected. Most of the air-conditioning is on the brutal side—just a few degrees different from the Ellsworth freeze locker. But I haven’t really had a chance to take anything in yet.

  Hope you and Joe are making out well and that you won’t try to do anything too spectacular in my absence. It seemed sad to be leaving Maine, even for these few days. Lots of love,

  Andy

  P.S. I’m going to try Air Mail on this, to see if it makes a difference. I have an idea that when it gets to Old Town, it proceeds by canoe down river.

  To WILLIAM MAXWELL

  [New York]

  16 November [1948]

  Dear Bill:

  Katharine says you have had some experience with your books going into foreign language publication. “Stuart Little” seems to be going abroad in a big way, and so far I am far from happy with the results but don’t know what I am doing wrong. K says that you yourself arranged for the translation of one of your books, instead of leaving the matter to the publisher. I’ve been simply signing contracts tossed at me by an agent named Horch, and although the contracts call for a “faithful translation,” I sometimes wonder how much of a beating Stuart and I are taking from this fidelity. I have just received a copy of a book called “Rikki, Die abenteuerliche Geschichte einer kleinen Maus” which I recognize as the Viennese version of Stuart. There is also a book called “Peter Lille,” one called “Tom Trikkelbout,” and another called “Stuart Mus.” There is a contract now waiting my signature for Japanese-Korean rights, and God knows what name, or alias, he will travel under in the east. I wonder whether you have any ideas on all this. I’m not enough of a linguist to know whether a Dutch Stuart Little should be called Stuart Little or Tom Trikkelbout. But it is beginning to dawn on me that I damn well better find out, and I don’t know just how to go about it. Lawyers and agents are certainly no help.

  Incidentally, I read your Elm Street novel [Time Will Darken It] with great joy and satisfaction and envy, and found two mistakes, which I painstakingly copied down on a piece of paper and then lost the paper. One was on (I think) p. 57, when you meant to say surrey and said cart or vice versa—anyway, you had somebody getting into the wrong vehicle. The other escapes me at the moment.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To CHARLES COLE

  25 W. 43 Street

  New York

  December 13, 1948

  Dear Mr. Cole:

  I don’t know how to “reveal any aspect” of myself deliberately. Everything a person does or says is, of course, revealing. But you’re going to write that term paper, not me.

  Note the grammatical error in the preceding sentence. Very revealing.

  Good luck and I hope you pass the course.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To HAROLD ROSS

  [North Brooklin, Me.]

  [1948?]

  Mr. Ross:

  I promised you a list of people who generate comments. Here it is.

  Gibbs

  Hellman

  Hamburger

  McNulty

  Bishop

  Jacobi

  Kinkead

  Mangold

  Coates

  Hyman

  Bliven

  White

  Gill

  Cotler

  Newhouse

  Liebling

  Ross, H

  Hofeller

  E. B. White

  P.S. I received your note about signalling you in advance when I write a comment. I shall endeavor to do same. Last week I wrote a comment unexpectedly and turned it in, with misgivings. My feeling is that Gibbs, or whoever is carrying the load on comment, should get clear priority whenever there is the slightest conflict, or duplication. By this I mean that a timely conflict that comes in at the last minute and tends to muss up something Gibbs has done ought to be tossed out without question. Writing comment is bad enough without having a last-minute-Johnnie in your hair.

  I don’t think this problem is going to come up much, as I don’t anticipate that I am going to submit much comment, being occupied with other work these days. But I would like to feel free to submit comment along with the other comment submitters, and can feel that way only if I am sure I’m not getting the Special Treatment.

  To STANLEY HART WHITE

  229 East 48 Street

  2 January 1949

  Dear Bun:

  I haven’t read the book yet, as we gave a New Year’s Eve party for 100 people and I’m too busy counting empty bottles and removing stains from the carpet. But I thank you and Blanche for sending me the book and hope you had a good Christmas. I am starting 1949 in a somewhat relaxed and benign condition as the result of a decision to give up the responsibility of the New Yorker’s editorial page.1 I intend to apply myself to more irregular and peaceable pursuits for a while, to work patiently instead of rapidly, and to improve the nick of time. I may even try for a job on that platform which the Army hopes to establish 200,000 miles up, beyond the pull of gravity; it is conceivable that a person who no longer feels a gravitational pull might find himself no longer obedient to the pull of conscience and the pull of nationality—which would be a great joke on the Army, having gone to such trouble.

  Joe returns by train to Ithaca tonight after his holidays. He likes Cornell much better than he liked Exeter. He likes soccer better than history, and he likes naval architecture better than soccer. He has a Zippo cigarette lighter, and when he pulls at a cigarette he looks to be tasting life to the very lees. His sweater is white, with red numerals 1952. Last week he registered for the draft and acquired an entirely different number.

  My old dog Fred, whom you probably remember, died on Dec. 31 at the age of thirteen years and four months. With the exception of a brief spell during puppyhood when he suffered from an inflammation of the bowels, I think he never missed a meal in all those years, something of a record. Actually, he managed even to double his own record, because of a system he worked out for getting the cat’s meal, too. It was a complicated system, involving accurate timing and the mastery of certain doors and stairs. In his later years, suffering from hard arteries, it cost him a lot of pain, but he never completely abandoned it.

  Happy New Year to all,

  En

  To KATHARINE S. WHITE

  [New York]

  [early May 1949]

  Sunday aft

  Dearest K:

  Min and I are holding the fort this afternoon, with La Jenkins out sporting. The
awful hot spell broke last night and today is clear and beautiful, with a new bird in the Garden, let us call it a Willow Pitkin. Across the street, the entire janitorial family has blossomed out in pink carnations, which Agnes says is for Mother’s Day and is a sign that the Mother is alive (for those who have “passed on” the carnation is always white). Ergo: the Mother is alive, but has been “put away somewhere, in an institution.” I am glad to have these matters resolved for me.

  Have been having quite a bout of work since you left, and am a third of the way through my final draft of The Piece [“The Morning of the Day They Did It”]. Have reached the stage where I am suspicious that it is perhaps the lousiest concoction I have dreamed up to date, but am going doggedly ahead and will let others decide. Visited the Planetarium on Friday night (my first visit) to bone up on Space, and bought a book there on rockets. It is most helpful. . . .

  Found a note in my typewriter (from Ross) on Friday, simply saying: “Ginger Rogers is in town.” But have not acted. Minnie peed on the dining room rug from drinking excessive amounts of water due to the heat. I applied Dogtex and the stain is not noticeable. Have heard nothing from Joe, nothing from Atkin,1 nothing, in fact, from anybody. . . .

  There is no news of any consequence and I am writing this mostly to send my love. I have tickets to take you to see the Gi’nts play baseball next Sunday afternoon, a week from this day. I can’t tell you who their opponents will be, as I am not well informed along those lines. An office boy is selecting our site in the stands and is taking the assignment very seriously. I believe he rather leans toward first base. Terry told me she always sat between first and second. That I’d like to see.

  Love to all the Newberrys and to

  Aunt Crull, and to YOU

  Andy

  • White was not satisfied with “The Morning of the Day They Did It” and, after selling it to The New Yorker, withdrew it in the following letter to Ross. Ross eventually talked him into allowing it to be published. It appeared in the February 25, 1950, issue of the magazine and, later, in The Second Tree From the Corner.

  To HAROLD ROSS

  North Brooklin, Maine

  20 May 1949

  Dear Ross:

  I’ve read my piece over in proof, don’t like it, and don’t want it published. What I suggest is that, if you are willing, you credit me with the amount paid me, and I will turn in other casuals (shorter) against it and work it off that way. If you don’t want to do it that way, I’ll refund the money.

  My trouble with that piece was that I turned it in in too much of a hurry (was trying to clean things up) and never really took time to read it. (I took time to write it, but not to read it—which is always a big mistake.) I think I must have been impressed by the mere fact that it was finished—in other words I assumed that because it was completed it was meritorious, a preposterous assumption.

  Please don’t try to argue me out of this. Have given the matter careful consideration. A writer should have the privilege of withdrawing a piece as well as the privilege of submitting one, and I just don’t happen to like this piece.

  Yrs,

  White

  To CASS CANFIELD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  3 July 1949

  Dear Cass:

  With regard to the dollar book, I think the title Here Is New York is all right. I am sending for a clipping of my piece, to see whether the text needs any tinkering. I don’t think it does, but I shall write you definitely as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.

  I am satisfied with the terms you suggest in your letter, that is, 10% on retail to 5000 copies and 15% thereafter.

  I’ll leave it to you to find the sort of photograph you think is appropriate for the jacket. I didn’t think the Holiday photography was any ball of fire. As for the tailpiece, I am asking my secretary, Miss Terry, to send you a clipping from a recent Herald Tribune, showing the Turtle Bay Garden willow. I should think an artist could work from that very easily, but if the artist wants to get into the Garden he can simply go to Number 230 East 49 Street, which is the office, and explain his errand.

  I’m writing Jim Thurber about Is Sex Necessary? If it is all right with him, I guess we can dream up something new in the way of an introduction.1 If memory serves, that book will soon celebrate its twentieth birthday 11/7/49. It’s already older than most dogs.

  I read somewhere, the other day, that sex was going out.

  Yrs faithfully,

  Andy

  To STANLEY HART WHITE

  North Brooklin

  15 July 1949

  Dear Bun:

  . . .This is the summer of the grandchildren. Nancy and her three kids1 are in a cottage about a mile from here, and we are inundated. They all came over this morning to help us prepare peas for the freezer, and it was like the finale of a tumbling act. While Kay and Nancy shelled, Kitty and Jonny threw the empty pods at each other, and I stood in a corner sealing the cellophane liners with an electric curling iron. The peas are now safe in a steel drawer 24 miles from here, held at a steady temperature of 5 degrees below zero. Our ancestors never had fun like that.

  There has been a certain amount of violence around here this spring, not counting Nancy’s children. Our chimney got hit by lightning in April, and I blew the furnace up in May. It was time for it to blow up, I guess. Anyway, it proved easy work. All I had to do was chuck in a piece of an old plank, on top of a wood fire, and away she went. Made a dandy noise. I guess there was a little dynamite or something buried in the plank. I still have some of the same plank left, and the next time I use it on the fire I am going to stand further away. The insurance adjuster was down from Bangor to case the joint, and he seemed impressed by the infinite variety of my disasters. The chimney looked like an act of God, but the furnace looked exactly like an act that I would be likely to put on, judging from my appearance. After a little talk, he had me pretty well convinced that I had no business chucking stuff into my own furnace, and I got the impression that he felt God was rather cheeky, too, fooling around with a brick chimney that was out of his territory. . . .

  Joe has a job this summer, in a camp on Deer Isle. He teaches kids how to sail. Right now, he and three other guys are bringing a schooner from Rhode Island down to Maine, and from the radio weather reports they have had nothing but fog and easterlies. It wouldn’t surprise me if they ended up in the Caribbean. . . .

  En

  To JAMES THURBER

  North Brooklin, Maine

  27 July 1949

  Dear Jim:

  I heard from Terry about Rosy’s accident,1 and your letter just came with reassuring news. How the human frame extricates itself from the entanglements of this gasoline nightmare that we live in, is sheer magic. I am so glad that Rosy got through without a bad emotional shock, and without her good looks being all jarred to pieces. Katharine and I will send her some sort of greeting to the hospital. Incidentally, if there should ever develop any complication about a pelvic bone, please bear in mind that we are good friends (and patients) of Dr. Frank Stinchfield at the Medical Center. He did the wonderfully successful spinal fusion for K, and is considered tops in bone surgery. K, with her patched spine, is now swimming every day, rowing boats, and gardening. A Stinchfield triumph.

  One detail that escaped you about the accident is that July 11 was my birthday. I won’t try to make anything of it. . . .

  Joe has a job at a camp on Deer Isle, near here, and is on the water practically the entire time, so we are having a summer in which our nights are made restless not by the screech of tires in the back part of the mind, but by the sound of wind in the branches of the trees, and the fear of fog in the hollow of the stomach. Joe’s job is to take kids cruising and instruct them in sailing. On a SE wind, we can hear the fog signal ten miles down the bay, off the ledges. He came over to see us the other day, stayed for supper, and left just as dark was coming on, in a 15-foot sloop, disappearing toward the east as the thunderheads gathered. I think that if I had kno
wn that Rosy was lying in a nice, steady hospital bed that night, with no fog in the corridor, I would have swapped parenthood with you, sight unseen. But any way you look at it, it’s a gruelling course.

  I’ll see what I can do about a preface for Cass. If you know anything about sex, let me know. Maybe the preface should just be a factual story of our parenthoods, with the mists swirling around a pelvic ring, and the fog signal moaning down the bay. . . .

  Andy

  To DAISE TERRY

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  1 August (rabbit, rabbit) [1949]

  Dear Miss Terry:

  Would you kindly buy one dozen red cardboard portfolios, size 10 × 15 inches, at the stationery store down in the lobby, and bill me, and send to me? Size everything, dear. Ten by fifteen. Not some other crazy dimension.

  Brooklin is exhausted after a three-day centennial celebration, held in the middle of the tropic heat wave. I put in about 75 hours building a float for the procession of floats and decorated bicycles, and won first prize ($15). The Governor crowned Miss Brooklin 1949, the ball team won its two games, a lady sang “America the Beautiful” standing in front of the Baptist Church in the pouring sun while I knelt in the cemetery across the street next to the grave of a friend of mine who was shot for a deer in 1939, and the town exploded five hundred dollars’ worth of fireworks from Chatto Island on Saturday night in competition with a thunderstorm. Everyone in town commented on the very popular fact that when the next centennial rolled around, he wouldn’t be here.