Letters of E. B. White
Page 55
I also think a small amount of general narrative would be useful—a narrator speaking directly to the audience, using words from the book. Children rather like to be told something in plain words, and although the movie maker usually regards narration as an admission of defeat or a sign of weakness, I think in the case of “Charlotte’s Web” it might be appropriate. It could be the intimate, relaxed kind of scene-setting that Thornton Wilder’s narrator did so effectively in “Our Town.”
An experience I had with the problem of illustrating the book is perhaps what gives me the courage to propose this live-action method of filming. When Garth Williams tried to dream up a spider that had human characteristics, the results were awful. He tried and tried, but we ended up with a Charlotte that was practically right out of a natural history book, or, more precisely, out of my own brain. And I pulled no punches in the story: the spider in the book is not prettified in any way, she is merely endowed with more talent than usual. This natural Charlotte was accepted at face value, and I came out ahead because of not trying to patronize an arachnid. I think a film maker might have the same good results by sticking with nature and with the barn. . . . I saw a spider spin the egg sac described in the story, and I wouldn’t trade the sight for all the animated chipmunks in filmland. I watched the goslings hatch every spring, and I feel the same about that.
Anyway, I hope I’ve given you the gist of this idea. It could easily be a very sour idea, but it has stuck in my head for a long while, and I’d love to know whether you think it has any merit.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To HARRY LYFORD
25 W. 43
September 14 [1961]
Dear Harry:
I hope you’re not joining the ranks of those who scoop everything off their desk, put it in an envelope, and mail it to ME. Your recent communication shows an alarming trend. But thanks, old soldier. I didn’t know Thomas Wolfe was having a come-back. When last seen by me he was climbing a vine on the rear wall of Max Perkins’s apartment, drunk as a weasel and very noisy. He was in his climbing phase. . . .
May your declining years be busy ones!
Andy
• In the early sixties White began donating his attic-full of manuscripts and correspondence to the Cornell Library. George H. Healey was curator of rare books.
To GEORGE H. HEALEY
[New York]
September 27, 1961
Dear Mr. Healey:
A letter of mine presumably flashed by yours of 18 September, so here is a further attempt to communicate. . . . “Charlotte’s Web” is all ready to go now, but it is in Maine and will have to await my return home. The book has gone into ten or a dozen foreign editions, and I’ll be glad to send you a copy of each of them, if you’d like. Also any correspondence that might be amusing. . . .
After the first of the year, I shall set to work rounding up all the rest of my literary material. When I have it under control, I will send it to you and you can then invite the appraiser to Ithaca for a tour of inspection.
The New Yorker has saved all the original material that went into its issues as far back as 1934. (The stuff from 1925 to 1934 was presented to the Paper Drive during the Second War by a patriotic, if slightly insane, member of our advertising department.) Among this vast collection are many things by me. (I recently poked around in just one envelope representing just one issue, and my pugmarks were all over the place.) I can exhume this dusty material if it is of interest to Cornell. It probably reveals, more clearly than any other item in my mixed-up literary life, the early zeal that beset me. It also contains some of Ross’s pencil editing, which should hold countless generations of inquisitive freshmen in thrall and convince them that there must be an easier way of making a living. . . .
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To MRS. N. J. SHOPLAND
[New York]
September 28, 1961
Dear Mrs. Shopland:
. . . The characters in “Charlotte’s Web” were not presented as hicks; today’s farmer is anything but. Neither were they presented as intellectuals who use the language with precision. Very few people in any walk of life speak and write precisely and correctly, and I don’t myself. Your two letters, for example, contained mistakes—in the first letter you spelled grammar “grammer,” and in the second letter you used the word “forbearers” when you meant “forebears.”
I know the Zuckermans and the Arables quite well, and although I am not a farmer, many of my good friends are. I agree with you that the modern farmer is often a man of considerable education. But I think you are under a misapprehension about the nature of writing and the duties of a writer. I do not write books to raise any group’s cultural level, I simply put down on paper the things I see and hear. I report speech as I hear it, not as it appears in books of rhetoric. If you ever take up writing, I advise you to keep your ears open, and never mind about culture.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To DOROTHY LOBRANO
North Brooklin, Maine
2 November 1961
Dear Dotty:
According to a tremor on my grapevine, you have landed a job with the magazine. This is the nicest bit of news I’ve heard in many a day.
I don’t know when you are scheduled to begin work. Physically, the New Yorker is forbidding to the newcomer; it is like a rather badly arranged house of detention—little cells everywhere, and the long, grim corridors where people pass each other with no sign of recognition and as though sleep-walking. Do not permit this structural queerness to depress your spirits. Underneath everything is a strong tidal current, sweeping inmates onward and upward—a fine bloodstream and a great heart pumping away. My metaphor is already overwhelming, and I’ll just leave you with my blessing and hope to see you in the corridors soon.
Love,
Andy
• An editorial on the death of James Thurber in the Washington Post on November 6, 1961, gave White a great deal of credit for Thurber’s meteoric rise to fame. It elicited from White the following disclaimer, which the Post ran on November 17.
To THE EDITOR OF THE WASHINGTON POST
North Brooklin, Maine
[November 16, 1961]
To the Editor:
In 30 years the facts about anything at all seem to shake down into a sort of innocent distortion, and this is true of the facts about James Thurber and me. The piece on Thurber in your Nov. 6 issue sounded as though he and his work would have lain unnoticed if I hadn’t come along. This, as far as I’m concerned, is a pleasant theory, but it is a preposterous one. I did nothing to get Thurber appointed to the staff of the New Yorker except drop his name one day when Ross was casting about for names. I dropped it, and I let it lay, because I knew nothing about Thurber at that time. I had met him at the apartment of a friend (who, incidentally, was about as “Bohemian” as Herbert Hoover) and I thought he was a funny guy.
I did not “help him become an international celebrity”—he became one because he had what it takes. Nothing in the world could have stopped him. Even my much-touted admiration for his early drawings, although real enough, was touched less with perspicacity than with desperation. He and I needed some drawings to illustrate a book manuscript (“Is Sex Necessary?”). We thought we would stand a better chance with the publisher if there were some drawings. So we scooped up a few that were lying around in our office, and Jim drew others to fit the text. Harper & Brothers were bewildered, but they were game; they published the book not knowing they were launching a great artist. I didn’t realize what was happening either.
Thurber’s gateway was not me, it was The New Yorker itself. As soon as Ross saw Thurber’s writing, he knew he had a humorist on the premises. I am writing this disclaimer because, although I would like to take credit for all the things you said, the facts don’t stand up, and I think it must irritate Thurber’s friends and relatives, who know a great deal about the matter, to hear me spoken of in
this extravagant way. But thanks for the piece anyway—every man likes to be a king maker, if only for a day.
E. B. White
To CASS CANFIELD
North Brooklin, Maine
November 24, 1961
Dear Cass:
I have no objection to your using my words on the dust jacket of “The Last Flower” and I’m glad you plan to re-issue the book. Too bad it can’t come out in a more attractive form—the original one never seemed right to me. Jim didn’t think much of it, either, apparently, for the inscription in my copy reads: “For Andy and Katharine, With love and thanks for their help, without which Harpers would have ruined this more than they already have (2 blank pages, 5 reversed cuts). If you’re going into the theatre, stay in the theatre; otherwise stay in town and keep your eye on Harpers, the playboys of the Western World. Jim.”
The book would have gained, I think, if it had been smaller. Jim had switched from using a pencil to using a pen, and his pen strokes were seldom as sure and clean as his pencil strokes. Many of them showed tremor, and this became exaggerated by reproducing them so large. You might want to consider issuing a really beautiful book, smaller in size, and using good paper.
I think the color frame on each page works out well, but I should imagine that buff would be better than baby blue. The frames should be wider, and the drawings proportionately smaller. As you see, I’m still keeping my eye on Harpers.
Yours,
E. B. White
To RICHARD T. GORE
[North Brooklin, Maine]
November 27, 1961
Dear Mr. Gore:
Thanks for your letter and for the church calendar. The item is funny, but it would be ineffective without the proper names, and to use the names would be in bad taste, I fear. So I am reluctantly returning it.
I’m pleased to know somebody who has swum half way across [Walden] pond. Thoreau used to bathe on arising, and I’ve often wondered whether he wore some sort of swim suit or went in transcendentally.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To ALEXANDER B. TOTH
[North Brooklin, Maine]
November 29, 1961
Dear Mr. Toth:
You are right that no humorist has ever won the Pulitzer prize—there is something not quite first rate about funny men. However, I won the silver badge and the gold badge of the St. Nicholas League when I was a child, and I’ve not felt the need of any prize since then.
I believe Thurber left his literary papers and his manuscripts to Yale.1 I’m sure the Yale Library will treasure them, and they will constitute the living memorial you plead for. Of course, somebody might put a statue of a Thurber dog in Central Park, next to Balto.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To PAUL BROOKS
[North Brooklin, Maine]
December 13, 1961
Dear Paul:
I hope I didn’t cause you a lot of trouble about the “Wild Flag” manuscript. It will probably turn up in my attic when the dust settles, if it ever does.
I was about to write you when your letter came. This, too, concerns “The Wild Flag.” Not long ago I learned that the United World Federalist organization sells the book for fifty cents a copy. I presume this means that they buy the books from Houghton Mifflin in quantity and resell them, absorbing part of the cost as an organizational expense. I’m asking about this because I find it unsettling to have my book peddled as a sort of handbook by this organization, many of whose political panaceas I sharply disagree with. It is an odd situation for an author. “The Wild Flag” was written about sixteen years ago and has grown whiskers, and although I have no quarrel with its basic idea, I am greatly embarrassed to find myself being used by a political action group whose interpretation of the world government theme strikes me as fallacious and dangerous. Could you enlighten me as to what the situation is, exactly? That is, do you have any special arrangement with UWF? Did you print a supply of the books for them? It has occurred to me that the book might be out of print by this time, except for this one outlet. At any rate, I’d like to know what the facts are.
I think it’s fine that you are taking over the record program of Cornell’s ornithologists. I own the “Bird Song” record, and it is a favorite of our dachshund, who expressed his enthusiasm for it by clawing the fabric off the front of our old Magnavox. Oh, he loves boids. (He once caught a barn swallow on the wing—which isn’t bad for a low-posted dog.)
And my congratulations on getting Rachel Carson on contamination. It is a book I have known was in the making and one I await with impatience and general gloom.
Yrs,
Andy
To PAUL BROOKS
[North Brooklin, Maine]
January 5, 1962
Dear Paul:
Many thanks for your explanatory letter. Sorry my book has fallen on such hard times; those 843 copies that you are stuck with should really be sent back to me, the way Ticknor and Fields once tossed one of H.D.T.’s works back to the author. Then I could say, with Thoreau, “I now have a library of twelve hundred books, 843 of which I wrote myself.”
When the world finally gets a government (which it must surely have some day), I think you and I should be given a small government post in recognition of our services and our sacrifices. Meantime, the best of luck to you in today’s chaos.
Sincerely,
Andy
To JOHN UPDIKE
North Brooklin, Maine
12 January [1962]
Dear John:
I would rather read an unwritten novel by you than a written one by almost anybody else. The piece in this issue1 is wonderfully moving, moved me wonderfully, is almost unbelievably good, except I believe it. I went right from the O’Hara story into your grandmother and it was like entering a garden through a little gate. I keep trying to discover what it is (what mysterious thing) that elevates writing to the level where combustion takes place, and I guess it is simply that in writing there has to be an escape of gases or vapors from the center—Core Gas, that is. And even this explanation is unreliable, because God knows there was always gas escaping from Hemingway but a lot of the time it reminded me of the farting of an old horse. This mystery is not going to get solved in a hurry. Meantime, thanks for the shining thimble of your grandmother.
Yrs,
Andy
• Harriet Walden, who served The New Yorker in various secretarial and supervisory capacities for many years, took over the Whites’ affairs from Daise Terry. Miss Terry remained on the staff for several more years in a less demanding job, then retired.
To HARRIET WALDEN
[North Brooklin, Maine]
March 1, 1962
Dear Harriet:
The missing portfolio has been found. I had carefully packed everything in a mailing envelope before leaving home, with instructions to send it to me when I asked for it. Then I forgot to ask for it. That’s me. In a space capsule, I would forget to yaw.
You asked about opening my mail. Go ahead and open everything except the ones from Bardot.
Yrs,
EBW
To J. G. CASE
Fiddler Bayou
30 March [1962]
Dear Jack:
The next grammar book I bring out I want to tell how to end a sentence with five prepositions. A father of a little boy goes upstairs after supper to read to his son, but he brings the wrong book. The boy says, “What did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?”
And how are YOU?
Yrs,
Andy
To URSULA NORDSTROM
[Sarasota, Florida]
31 March 1962
Dear Ursula:
I am sorry if I puzzled you with my arithmetic. Anybody who receives seventy-five hundred dollars a year from an old book shouldn’t go around mystifying his benefactors. All I meant in my letter to you was that when Charlotte goes up over the ceiling (which is where a spider belongs anyway) ther
e is not a penny in it for me. There is presumably a penny in it for my grandchildren, though, and that is good enough for me. Their names are Steven, Martha, and John. John, who is now three, has invented a small friend who lives in an empty peanut butter jar and is called Deedee Ham-O. This little fellow (according to John’s mother) does everything John would like to do—never has hair cuts or gets his face washed.
I never intended to get you tangled up with the Royalty Department over my queer affairs. I was the boy who set $7500 as the maximum amount. Ross once said that a New York cop was incapable of thinking of any sum over fifteen hundred dollars—a remark that still strikes me as very funny. Well, I am a little like Ross’s cops—I am incapable of thinking of any sum over seventy-five hundred dollars. To me that’s all the money there is in the world, and it’s more than enough.
Yrs,
Andy
• Beulah Hagen had been Assistant to Cass Canfield for many years, although she had not worked with White before The Points of My Compass was in preparation.
To BEULAH HAGEN
North Brooklin, Maine
7 May 1962
Dear Beulah:
We’re so near the end of these negotiations I am going to call you Beulah and you can call me Whitey or Butch or Andy. . . .
The manuscript is almost ready, and I plan to put it in the mail on May 15 and drive right from the post office to the liquor store, and you can receive it on May 17 and drive right to Sarasota without reading it.