Letters of E. B. White
Page 68
It’s really a matter of personal taste. You like the chocolate, I like the vanilla. Nothing wrong with either of them, just a matter of preference.
There’s nothing in my letter to you of October 1965 that isn’t true. Julie Harris did read “Stuart Little” beautifully, I did feel in her debt and in yours. But that letter did not ramble on, as it might have, into my deeper convictions about the business of reading a book. At that time, such an extension of my ideas would have been irrelevant, if not impertinent. So I just said thank you very much.
Then, when “Charlotte’s Web” came up, I assumed the field was wide open and proposed that the book be read by someone who wasn’t an actress. This was an attempt on my part to experiment with a new and different sound, and I was naturally surprised when I learned that the book had already been recorded by Miss Harris. I feel reasonably sure you don’t want to discard Julie Harris after the work she’s put in. As for me, I feel embarrassed, although I had nothing to do with the matter. It would be a snub, on my part, to run Julie Harris down the drain and insist that someone else be substituted. I see no solution to our dilemma. If you see one, I’d like to hear about it.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To CAROL ANGELL
N. Brooklin
May 28 [1970]
Dear Carol:
Happy, happy Birthday! It must be awful to be forty [she was thirty] but anyway, you are stuck with it now. At 96, I seem to grow younger every day. Jones is feeling his age a little bit, but not much. He is going to feel it more next week when I show up here with a West Highland White Terrier puppy named Susy. I bought Susy from a woman in Southwest Harbor the other day when I was caught in a puppy-buying mood, but I did not bring her home with me—the weather was cold and she will have to live in the barn and I didn’t want her first night to be a cold one. Jones is psychic and knows something is going on that will affect him one way or another, probably adversely, and he goes around wreathed in deep suspicion. He was with me in Southwest when I made the purchase, and he smelled a rat.
My next shopping expedition will be to the Rackliffe Pottery or the Rowantrees Pottery to look for a couple of plates which are to be part of your birthday present from K and me. I wish I knew more about what color you would like and what shape. If they are for appetizers, would you like a divided-up plate or a plain plate? I hope to take K with me when I go, but right now her back is so painful she can’t get into a car. . . .
The weather has smoothed out and we are in the middle of a beautiful time, crab in bloom, pear in bloom, wild pear along the roadsides in bloom, lilac buds ready to burst, many birds, and blue skies with bright sun. Saturday was a nice day at the Brooklin Boat Yard for the launching of Cachalot, the Peter Sturtevant sloop. It was an in absentia launch, but the owner threw a party anyway, and there was a nice crowd, which included old Artley Parson who is 110, with his wife Charlotte. . . . Allene served drinks and fish chowder. Marianne Allen, Henry’s daughter, swung the champagne bottle and hit the boat on the second try. Cachalot is strip-planked and is as spacious below as a ballroom. . . .
Joe Berk, from Pathways of Sound, was here last week to talk about recording “Charlotte’s Web.” He had already got Julie Harris to read the book, unbeknownst to me, and he brought along the tape. I didn’t like it and said so, and it ended up by my agreeing to read the book myself, in my famous monotone. Berk and a technician are arriving at the Blue Hill Inn next week and I will read the book in Joe’s living room after swallowing a cat pill. Joe and Allene will be away, fetching Steven and Martha. Berk, apparently, is a perfectionist. . . . and I am supposed to pause in the narration every time a car goes by on the highway. I don’t know what we’ll do about the sonic boom or the ducks.1
Center Harbor is going to look like Marblehead this summer—lots of boats, including Surfing Seal, back from the Caribbean, and Prudence, the new Williamson boat—a large schooner. Mooring space is so tight, I have been chivvied out of my old location to a less desirable spot closer to the end of the sewer pipe from the Faith School of Theology.
Hope you have a pleasant birthday. Lots and lots of love. See you soon.
Andy
To HOWARD CUSHMAN
North Brooklin
June 12 [1970]
Dear Cush:
The first copy of “The Trumpet of the Swan” to leave here on the wings of the U.S. Mail is addressed to thee. It goes forth today. Your brilliant work as my operative in the Philadelphia Zoo, your color snaps of Trumpeters, the wealth of material you dispatched a year ago—how can I ever forget! They bore fruit, of a most peculiar sort, but fruit. And I am indeed grateful. If you’d like free copies for your grandkinder or other tots, to sprinkle around at Christmas and birthdays, let me know your needs and I will curb my natural niggardliness and see that you get the books.
The book is too long—which is my fault; I haven’t the time to write short these days. The jacket looked quite nice until some genius at Harper decided to paste a green sticker on the boy’s crotch. Harper’s would gladly put the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on the Ten Commandments. It’s no use trying to get publishers to do anything sensible, or do anything right.
Sorry about that testy postal card, or, as I call it in my pithy way, post card. I’ve had enough testiness for three people since about last summer, and I vent my humors on one and all, without fear or favor. I can’t even remember what the post card said, but I have no short-memory any more. I presume the blood is not getting to the head, and all the little memory channels are dry and carry no traffic from one point in the brain to another. Ah, welladay! Have you had any news from your book yet? Any Lippincouragement? I keep candles burning.
Yr testy friend,
Andy
To HOWARD CUSHMAN
[North Brooklin, Maine]
[July 19, 1970]
Sunday
Dear Cush:
Thanks for the Xerox of the Cushman review, and thanks again for writing it. If you need any more copies of the trumpet, let me know. I had my first visit from a trumpeter last week—a very pretty young mother from Deer Isle, friend of Gluyas Williams’s, showed up in the driveway with her two tots, Jake and Eliza. Jake carried a beatup bugle, adorned with a long, off-white, braided cord. He stood by the barnyard fence and let go with reveille, mess call, and taps, his face wearing a most tortured expression (like the great Armstrong). The notes came out pretty good for an 8-year-old. His mother watched him with affection but not the slightest trace of indulgence, and then, at the end of taps, said to me: “Now you won’t know whether to get up, eat, or go to bed.”
As the man whom I chauffeured safely across America, daylong and nightlong, you will be sorry to learn that my 55-year stretch of happy motoring came to an abrupt close last Thursday. I fell asleep at the wheel of my car and hit a telephone pole. My injuries are painful but relatively unimportant. My pride is broken, my spirit gone, and my automobile a tangled mass of junk. If you ever feel drowsy at the wheel, stop the car, get out, and lie down under the nearest sassafras bush. And if you ever take an antihistamine pill and follow it with an Old Fashioned, don’t drive.
Yrs,
Andy
To J. G. GUDE
North Brooklin
August 28, 1970
Dear Jap:
The eye doctor didn’t come up with much. It would appear that my eyes are all right, but on certain days I can’t see out of them. Well, often there isn’t much to see anyway.
As for those “Charlotte’s Web” proposals, here are some thoughts I’ve had in my more lucid moments:
1. Disney is out. (He’s even dead.)
2. I share your doubts about Joel Katz’s treatment. It was sketchy and not reassuring. I’m afraid he might get into real trouble with a wholly live adaptation, just as Heinemann got into trouble with that stuffed mouse.
3. The Sagittarius proposal strikes me as the most promising of the lot. If Mr. Edgar Bronfman is president of Seagram’s,
there must be some money there somewhere. What’s more, I sometimes buy Seagram’s 7, so I would be helping the whole thing along in my small way. I hold no firm opinion as to whether the story should be totally animated or only partly animated. I think a good and faithful film could be made either way, and I incline to let whoever wants to do the book do it the way he wants to. I remember years ago a letter from Nunnally Johnson, who said, “Well, maybe animation is the way to do it.” Or words to that effect. Does Hubley favor Sagittarius?
4. I am pretty sure of one thing: there should be a narrator. This is a story—a story told to children. Children like to hear the words said, and they listen. Certain parts of “Charlotte’s Web” would be lost if there were no narrator—the words are there, but they have to be spoken if they are not to be lost. For example, a camera can show a barn. But a camera can’t come up with the barn as described in the first paragraph of Chapter III. You need the words. Words are also very useful in transition. “The next day was foggy. Everything on the farm was dripping wet. The grass looked like a magic carpet. The asparagus patch looked like a silver forest.” The camera can show all that stuff but it can’t say “the next day.”
Or, “The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer’s ending, a sad, monotonous song. ‘Summer is over and gone,’ they sang. ‘Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.’” A sound track has no difficulty coming up with cricket-song, but there is no substitute for narration in a transitional passage like that, short of putting the words in the mouth of one of the characters.
5. Music. This story is an old-fashioned story. It’s a country story, and it is pastoral in tone. The musical accompaniment should reflect this. I think I’d be against anything very modern in the way of music and would favor old-timey sweet music, plus the sort of music that is typical of country fairs. I recall the music in the old black-and-white film of “State Fair” and it was great.
I’m willing to meet with anyone who wants to come here and see me, and if my health should improve I’m willing to come to New York. Are you acquainted with Campus? And do you think he’s a good director? If you have confidence in Sagittarius (I’m Cancer, myself), I think it would be sensible to close a deal and see what happens. I’ll help if they want me to and if I’m able to.
Yrs,
Andy
To JAMES A. WRIGHT
North Brooklin, Maine
August 29, 1970
Dear Jim:
I started reading that monthly letter of the Royal Bank of Canada with only a moderate amount of curiosity, but as it progressed I began to hear echoes, and before I got through I discovered that it wasn’t just Dostoevsky and Carlyle and Tennyson and Shakespeare he had been reading. He had been dipping into a little book called “The Elements of Style,” by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White. Take a look at this:
(Royal Bank) (Elements of Style)
It is no sign of weakness or defeat that a typescript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers. Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.
I heard the echo because the words were mine, and I sometimes remember my own words—usually with distaste. Well, I am glad to have helped out an ink-stained wretch of the Royal Bank in his solemn hour of composition. Writing is an ordeal, and in his penultimate paragraph a writer can easily be in extremis, as this one evidently was.
I’m glad you liked my kooky little swan story. It took a lot of gall to write it, as I have never in my life laid eyes on a Trumpeter Swan, either in or out of captivity. But I’ll tackle anything in a pinch, and I began to feel the pinch more than a year ago when I looked around and discovered that my house was full of day nurses and night nurses at $28 per day. Or night. It runs into money fast. . . .
Yrs,
Andy
To URSULA NORDSTROM
North Brooklin, Maine
September 2, 1970
Dear Ursula:
I have another correction to add to your garland. On page 201, third line from bottom, “ko-hoh” should read “beep.” This boo-boo on my part was caught by two alert children who reside at 1010 Fifth Avenue. (All my readers are extremely wealthy.) Their pa wrote me a very nice letter, and I wrote back and also sent the kids a book. Can this mistake be corrected in the next printing?
Yrs,
Andy
To ALICE J. SCOTT
[North Brooklin, Maine]
September 23, 1970
Dear Mrs. Scott:
When I start a book, I never know what my characters are going to do, and I accept no responsibility for their eccentric behavior. Nor do I worry about what children are going to think about the story. I just go ahead and write it the way I see it. As far as Louis is concerned, he was taking Sam’s advice, and Sam is very pro-zoo. It doesn’t strike me that Louis was insensitive or disloyal, but if that’s the way he strikes you, so be it.
Life in a zoo is just the ticket for some animals and birds. Waterfowl usually seem to be having a fine time on their private lagoons. The Philadelphia Zoo, incidentally, hatched some Trumpeter cygnets a few years back when the species was threatened with extinction, and helped save them for the world.
Thanks very much for your letter and your comments.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
To ROGER ANGELL
N. Brooklin
October 24 [1970]
Dear Rog:
Groggy though I be, I’m going to write you this long overdue letter. I’ve been on an insomnia kick—haven’t caught enough sleep the last week to keep a mouse in bad dreams. As a result, I’m light-headed and frail. But at least I’ve done some reading. Not T. Eliot, top bard, either.
Pleasure, pure naked pleasure, is what I got from a reexamination of your pieces in A Day.1 It is a terrifically funny book, and good good good. Doog doog doog to you. I have my favorites—Ivy is one, and the title piece. But the whole thing is great and exudes what can only be called class. In some curious way it reminds me of the old Ring Lardner, I think because there is the stratum and the sub-stratum, where you get down into a nice deep dark layer of human experience, far below the surface level of fun and games. For straight parody, the “New York Review of Books” struck me as brilliant at the time, and still does on rereading. Anyway, congratulations on the book, and thanks for sending us this copy. I’m sorry I’ve been so slow in acknowledging it. (There’s a typo on p. 47—“to” for “too.”)
Thank Carol for her card about the record album. I am glad my voice sings infants to sleep, and just hope to hell it doesn’t sing everybody else to sleep. Somebody at Harper told Joe Berk, the producer, that Harper couldn’t get up much interest in it because it sounded “unenthusiastic”—no theatrics. I guess I should have read it against a background of rock music.
A rat has died in our walls—our annual exposure to air pollution. And today the trout are coming up the brook with love in their hearts. The brook has a lot more water in it than it did a year ago on this passionate occasion, when they had to crawl upstream on their hands and knees. Now they can make it by using the breast stroke. And I have scooped out a spawning bed for them, which they may or may not use. . . .
Did you hear about the Maine Maritime Academy tragedy? Four 18-year-old midshipmen were allowed to set out in a Shields Class sloop, name of Phyllis, on a rotten afternoon a week ago. Only one of the four knew anything about boat-handling, and none of the four has shown up since. Only a few battered floor boards off North Haven. The incident has kicked up quite a stir hereabouts, and I’m afraid somebody over at that Academy goofed.
Shawn phoned me yesterday about the piece I turned in,2 and he sounded so woebegone and melancholy I tried to persuade him to send the thing back. I felt as though I had stabbed him in the back. I’m sure from the tone of his voice he doesn’t want to run the pi
ece but is just doing so as a matter of principle. Life is hard.
Am taking K to Bangor on Tuesday for the removal of a skin cancer on her right arm. Her health, otherwise, is about what it was, and she is busy every minute of the day. We still have roses in bloom, but the Christmas orders have gone out long since to Carroll Reed [a mail-order house]. Susy is vibrant and well, Jones is resigned and well. Both have recovered from their surgery. And there is a moose in South Blue Hill. And I guess that about covers the situation. Thanks again, Rog, for the book; it is very impressive. (I thought the endorsements on the back of the jacket were hilarious.)
Love,
Andy
P.S. Another book I’m enjoying is “The Hoopoe” by Christine Weston. I really think she’s done it this time. It’s a long, ambitious book, wonderful about a girlfriend in India, and, I gather, autobiographical.
To HAMISH HAMILTON
[North Brooklin, Maine]
November 11, 1970
Dear Jamie:
My free copies of the British swan have arrived, and I think the book makes a very brave appearance. The glossy dust cover has the elegant appearance of an old but expensive automobile that has been beautifully kept by its owner—plenty of wax. The American jacket seems quite dull by comparison.
I hope you have good luck with the story. In last Sunday’s Times it surprised me by busting out in the number one position on the Children’s Best Seller list, bumping Charlotte down to fourth place. So there I was, betraying my own best friend, in cold type. Charlotte, by the way, has been sold to the movies, and I am being invaded this weekend by a producer (from Hollywood), an animator from Copenhagen, and another animator from, I think, Prague. All this fuss because of a girl named Aranea Cavatica, may she rest undisturbed!