Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  To HOWARD CUSHMAN

  North Brooklin, Maine

  10 October 1968

  Dear Cush:

  How would you like to do some sleuthing for an aging fiction writer? It would take you, on these golden October days, season of mists and mellow fruitiness, to the Zoological Gardens, there to scan birds and maybe even grill a curator. One of my fictional characters has had the rotten nerve to take me to Philly, and I am severely handicapped, having only been to your quaint burg twice in my life—once in 1920 or 1921 to squire Alice Burchfield to a Penn game, and once in the Fifties to watch the Giants.

  I’ve never visited the Zoo, although I did catch a glimpse of an elephant from a train window. As you know, I am a good deal older than you and am too decrepit to travel to strange lands like Philadelphia in the fall. I look to you for my background information. Now let’s take Bird Lake, which is, I believe, where the waterfowl camp out. What does Bird Lake look like? Is it pleasing, ugly, small, big, what? Is there a fence? High? Is it entirely caged in? (Oh, dear, I hope not! This would pose a problem that is none of your concern—I’m writing this book, not you, Buster.)

  Are there any Trumpeter Swans in residence today? How many? Back in 1965, five cygnets were hatched there. I believe they were the first Trumpeters ever hatched in captivity in this country. The Curator of Birds at that time was a Mr. John A. Griswold, and perhaps he still is on the job. He could tell you what I need to know, but don’t give me away: I’m a very secretive author, not given to loose talk about my projects.

  Have any cygnets been hatched since 1965? How are birds in Bird Lake held captive—cage? wings clipped so they can’t fly? Are there the usual complement of waterfowl—ducks, geese, swans? Is there a house they go into from the water? Any shelter? Are they on the Lake all winter, skating around on the ice?

  And now a sudden switch. Night clubs! In what general area of Philadelphia would one find a night spot? The only name I know in Philly is Rittenhouse Square. I don’t need the name of any club, or anything of that sort—just need to get oriented. For that matter, in what general area of Philly is the Zoo?

  By now I’m sure you are thoroughly confused. Is old White at last thoroughly addled? Pay no attention to your qualms and doubts: your reward will come in Heaven, which is probably only a little less idyllic than the Zoological Gardens of Philadelphia. Just pay attention to my questions.

  It is very unusual for me to attempt to write about something I don’t know about at first hand, but this goddam little fictional character has got me into this, and I could break his arm. Or wing. . . .

  So go forth, Old Friend. Case the Gardens for me. Tell me how they smell, what they look like. Examine the swans on Bird Lake. Enjoy this season of mists and mellow fruitcake.

  And on November 5th, vote for the best man—whoever he may be.

  Love,

  Ho

  P.S. To prepare yourself for this preposterous task, you should probably bone up on nomenclature. A male swan is a cob. A female swan is a pen. A baby swan is a cygnet. (But don’t say that I told you.)

  • White met David Dodd, a retired Columbia professor, and his wife Elsie in Florida.

  To DAVID DODD

  North Brooklin

  [October 27, 1968]

  Sunday

  Dear Dave:

  This will have to be a quickie, as I have about one million chores to do in preparation for our migration. But I do want to thank you for the wonderful letter in which you recalled the haying of your boyhood. . . .

  My own life with hay has been a mixed dish—I dearly love everything about the cutting and curing of grass and the hauling of the finished product into the delicious upper regions of an old barn. I also have terrible hay fever. I even have an allergy to horse dander. By rights I should never have bought a place in the country and settled down to enjoy the land, because of what it does to my mucous membranes. But I wouldn’t trade my barn for the Taj Mahal or Onassis’s yacht: and just to go down into my barn cellar at daylight to grain the sheep and pitch some hay down the chutes is compensation enough for all the misery of my silly nose.

  My contribution in haying time is to ride the Cub tractor that hoists the load, then back it up briskly to the barn for the next bite of the hayfork. My hay goes into the barn loose, not baled. And that’s the way I like it. . . .

  Yrs,

  Andy

  • When President Johnson appointed James Russell Wiggins of the Washington Post ambassador to the UN, the New York Times published an editorial questioning his qualifications. White, who had just borrowed Wiggins’ manure spreader and who had had dealings with him about hay, shot off a piece defending his friend and praising his diplomatic ability. (Wiggins later retired to live year-round in Maine, where he published the weekly Ellsworth American. Like White, he was a strong proponent of freedom of the press. He died on November 19, 2000 at age 96.)

  To ROBERT E. L. STRIDER

  North Brooklin, Maine

  October 28, 1968

  Dear Bob:

  When I phoned Herb Mitgang at the Times and asked whether he’d like a piece on Russell Wiggins, our new Ambassador, Herb sounded crestfallen—if anyone’s crest can fall over the telephone. He was afraid I hadn’t read the editorial, but I assured him I had. With some reluctance he told me to send the piece in. I guess the management didn’t care much for it, but pluck won out.

  It was good of you to write. I’m glad you and Helen got some fun out of the thing. I don’t really know how well-equipped Russell is for the job he has been summoned to, but he is such a thoroughly cheerful and honest man I think he’ll bring fresh air into the chamber. A man whose boss Russell now is wrote me about an episode that took place soon after he arrived. A speech writer submitted a speech for his approval. Russell read it through slowly, made about one hundred changes, then said: “I’d like to try a different ending. You don’t suppose I could have a typewriter in here, do you?” The writer looked alarmed and told the boss that it was a very unusual request but he’d see what he could do. A machine was produced, and the Ambassador settled down happily to his task, in his enormous chair in his enormous office, punching away like the good newspaperman he is. I hope they gave him yellow paper. Did you know that most journalists are incapable of thinking on white paper? I’ve never been able to—which is why I duck writing letters. . . .

  Thanks again for your kind words. Our best to you both, and may you have a good and gentle winter in the groves.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To HOWARD CUSHMAN

  North Brooklin

  [October 1968]

  Sabbath morn

  Dear Cush:

  What a friendly fellow you are, and what a fine sheaf of instructive material to help me in the heavy task that lies ahead! I am very grateful to you and Jit. If anything ever comes of this fantastical enterprise of mine, you will be at the very top of the “without whom” set—my beautiful people.

  I am having to weigh your report of the swan’s voice (“not commanding, sir, at all”) against the word of such men as John James Audubon and Edward Howe Forbush, who take a different view of the matter. Your brief “yarp” was probably a polite acknowledgment of tossed peanuts. I can only believe that when Trumpeters are stimulated by the tossed salad of springtime passion, or the giddy sensation of migratory flight (sustained and elevated), they can put an old Reo in the shade with their wild and resonant calling. However that may be, kindly do not go about Philadelphia telling people that White is busy with the Swan—specially that cribbing friend of yours (forget his name) who did such a neat job with a variation of the theme of one of my children’s books (forget which). I have what I think is a peachy idea for a tale, and with a little help from God and the great help I’ve had from you, perhaps I can bring it off.

  More later. Thank you, oh good Cushman!

  Yrs,

  Andy

  • Captain Walter Schirra’s irritated exchange with the ground controllers of A
pollo 7 prompted this reader, who identified himself as a golf pro, to think of White’s “The Morning of the Day They Did It.”

  To W. M. WELCH

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [October 1968]

  Dear Mr. Welch:

  I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best and blame Schirra’s stuffy head cold for the backtalk. It did sound like Obblington and Trett for a few moments there.

  As of this writing, the planet earth hasn’t broken up yet, and there is always the chance that I am as lousy a prophet as I am a mechanic. I’ve played golf twice in my life; both times, in order to get any fun out of it, I had to resort to the hit and run. I would hit the ball, then follow it on the run, yelling. I used only one club, a midiron. Played this way, it’s not a bad game.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  • The “Committeemen” of the letter that follows were a group of fourth-graders in Columbus, Ohio.

  To COMMITTEEMEN OF ROOM 24

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [November 1968]

  Dear Committeemen of Room 24:

  I’m not sure I can explain how to write a book. First, you have to want to write one very much. Then, you have to know of something that you want to write about. Then, you have to begin. And, once you have started, you have to keep going. That’s really all I know about how to write a book. I’ve written seventeen of them, and I’m almost ready to quit—but not quite.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To HOWARD CUSHMAN

  The Tuscany

  New York

  [November? 1968]

  Saturday night

  Dear Mr. Cushman:

  You have shown such aptitude for the kind of work I have been entrusting you with, such zeal, such keen powers of observation, and quick willingness to go direct to the scene, I am inclined to offer you steady work in the challenging field of research. The speed and effectiveness with which you produced excellent color photographs of the swan somehow took me right back to “A Message to Garcia” (The Philistine, 1899) and I realized how proud Elbert Hubbard would be of his fellow townsman. Do you recall that passage about the man “of brilliant parts” (golden balls, I presume) who not only was incapable of managing a business of his own but was absolutely worthless to anyone else, could neither give orders nor receive them. “Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat.” Ah, my good friend, what a contrast you are to this heel-dragging knave! What an inspiration to us all!

  Next question. Think of small hotels! Think of the old song “In a small hotel.” What was the title? Was it “Small Hotel”? Or was it “In a small hotel”? Think of the lyrics. Write them down for me in my terrible need, and without “asking any idiotic questions.”

  The snapshots from Bird Lake are an inspiration to me and I am encouraged to go on. I would caution you, though, not to underestimate Audubon’s familiarity with the Trumpeter. He heard them many times and in many places. Not only that, he and his miller and six or seven of his servants captured one that had been nicked in the wing, and he brought it home for the amusement and pleasure of his wife and children. (It is a lot easier to do something of this sort if you take your miller with you. Anything you undertake for me in the future, take your miller along. Your burden will be greatly eased.)

  Address me, kind sir, at 289 Cedar Park Circle, Sarasota, Fla. 33581. I am in this small hotel only for a brief moment.

  Yrs gratefully,

  E. B. White

  To RICHARD L. LINDELL II

  [Sarasota, Florida]

  December 20, 1968

  Dear Mr. Lindell:

  I’m not an educator or a pedagogue and have no firm ideas about curricula. But in answer to your question I can only say that if I were teaching an English course, and it had to do with American literature, my students would certainly become acquainted with writers like Don Marquis, who is of the “recent past.” Nabokov’s memoir called “Speak, Memory” would be required reading.

  I think it is true that there is a kind of dead spot, on campuses, in the work of writers of ten or twenty years ago. The students all know about Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. But then comes a gap. They jump right to Cleaver, over the dead bodies of many a good man.

  Sincerely yours,

  E. B. White

  To MRS. MAX BRUBAKER

  [Sarasota, Florida]

  December 28, 1968

  Dear Mrs. Brubaker:

  Celia Summer, of the Scribner Book Store, says you want to know whether I have a book in the making. It is very heartening to know that somebody cares about this.

  All writing men have a book in the making; the only question is, what happens. I cannot at this point tell you, or forecast, what will happen. I have in my bedroom a rather heavy, legal-size envelope, and as near as I can make out, it contains about two-thirds of the manuscript of a book. I am 69 years old. It’s that last third that I wonder about.

  Thanks for the inquiry.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To WILLIAM K. ZINSSER

  Sarasota, Florida 33581

  December 30, 1968

  Dear Mr. Zinsser:

  I can’t be much help in “assessing” Sid’s writing and his influence. I do know that a sentence he wrote about forty years ago still makes me chuckle every time I think of it. I can’t quote it exactly, but it was something like: “She had a cow—a Holbein.” That’s pure Perelman and it stays with you.

  Sid, of course, commands a vocabulary that is the despair (and joy) of every writing man. I have to get along with a vocabulary of about fifteen hundred serviceable words that I just use over and over again, trying to rearrange them in an interesting order. Sid is like a Roxy organ that has three decks, fifty stops, and a pride of pedals under the bench. When he wants a word, it’s there. Sid even speaks with precision—a feat many a writer is incapable of. He and Laura showed up here in Sarasota a couple of winters ago. They had been in an automobile accident—a bad one, the car a complete wreck. Laura came out of it with some bruises, Sid with a new word. The car, he learned, had been “totalled.” I could see that the addition of this word to his already enormous store meant a lot to him. His ears are as busy as an ant’s feelers. No word ever gets by him.

  I’m sure Sid’s stuff influenced me in the early days. I recall the pleasures and satisfactions of encountering a Perelman piece in a magazine. Those pieces usually had a lead sentence, or lead paragraph, that was as hair-raising as the first big dip on a roller coaster: it got you in the stomach, and when it was over you were relieved to feel deceleration setting in. In the realm of satire, parody, and burlesque, he has, from the beginning, bowed to none. His erudition is as impressive as his flights of fancy and his sword play. I don’t like the word “humorist,” never have. It seems to me misleading. Humor is a by-product that occurs in the serious work of some and not others. I was more influenced by Don Marquis than by Ernest Hemingway, by Perelman than by Dreiser. I can’t “assess” this, I can merely report it.

  But if you’re hoping to disabuse people of the notion that there is something vaguely second-rate about humorous expression in literature, I wish you luck. I don’t think you have a prayer.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To MARTHA WHITE

  Sarasota, Florida

  January 5, 1969

  Dear Martha:

  It is a cold, gloomy Sunday here today, and our thoughts turn toward home. I have just removed the Christmas wreath from the front door and took a deep breath of Maine fir as I tossed it into a wheelbarrow full of Jones’s dirty bedding from his sleeping box.

  We loved all the gifts that came from you and your family. It is good to get things from home when you are this far away.

  My New Year began with a dog fight. A few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, Jones informed me that we were in imminent danger fr
om an intruder and that we had better do something about it right away. So I crawled out of bed, put on a wrapper, snapped his leash onto Jones, and we both stepped out the front door. Someone with a flashlight was in the driveway, and then I saw Mrs. Tolman’s big black standard poodle on the lawn. She called him, but instead of going to her he danced across the lawn straight for us. Jones by this time was in a terrible fury and wanted to kill the poodle. The poodle accepted the challenge, and in a jiffy I was in the vortex of a whirlpool of dog flesh that seemed to consist of about six enormous black poodles and about ten tiny Norwich terriers. It was noisy and flashy, and Jones and I were lucky to escape without being bitten. I managed to scoop him up in my arms and duck indoors. But I was shook up by the engagement, and Jones was furious that he had to go to bed without a decision. French poodles are very strange when they fight—they seem to keep their cool and operate on a high intellectual plane, like Gene Tunney.

  Thank you for your good letter. You didn’t tell us which of the schools you visited you prefer, or haven’t you made up your mind? Grandma is still suffering from the fall she took before Christmas. Her left hand isn’t of much use to her, as it is in a bandage still. I love the picture you sent. We have it propped up against the photo of MARTHA [the sloop], and everyone who comes in admires it. We are looking forward to seeing Diane and Jimmy Henderson when they come South. Give my best to Steve and John.

  Love,

  Grandpa

  • In the course of his search for material on White, Scott Elledge had paid a call on Mrs. Alice Burchfield Sumner. She had saved White’s letters and wrote him of her intention to give them to Cornell.

  To ALICE BURCHFIELD SUMNER

  Sarasota, Florida

  January 10, 1969

  Dear Burch:

  It’s nice to hear from somebody who lives on Peaceable Street. The street I’m living on, Rancor Alley, is having a sewer laid under it. Men with heavy machinery take their battle stations at seven a.m.

  Your letter just arrived. Anything that gets sent to Harper is likely to have a long trip. I apologize for this tardy answer, and I thank you for getting in touch with me before committing yourself to the importunate Mr. Elledge. Scott is a very nice guy. I do not think he has had much experience as a reporter, and whether he can write a “definitive” biography is anybody’s guess. I loathe tape recorders and distrust what they do to a conversation, but if you feel like talking to one, it’s your choice. I would certainly insist on the right to edit, if you do it at all.