Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

Eggemoggin Reach froze over this year, and so did Blue Hill Bay down as far as the light, a noble and awe-inspiring sight. The smelt tents in Surry are out in their usual gay colors, but the smelts have quit coming into the harbor because they don’t like to travel so far under ice. Gives them claustrophobia. Somebody told me the other day that a gull won’t eat a smelt. I don’t know whether to believe it or not but am conducting my own survey and will let you know if I learn anything. All the gulls I’ve ever known will eat anything. Our extreme cold weather has moderated, the light is lengthening, and the vast snow cover is beginning to turn grey and thin. It has been a beautiful winter—quite sunny much of the time—but a confining one. I don’t enjoy being housebound. . . . Keep well, and don’t run too many errands.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  • A family named Turner, who lived in a remote spot in British Columbia, had befriended a wintering colony of trumpeter swans. Dolly Connelly, a feature writer living in Seattle, had visited the Turners and written White about young Susan, suggesting he send her a copy of his swan book.

  To DOLLY CONNELLY

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [February 16?, 1971]

  Dear Miss Connelly:

  I shall dispatch a copy of “The Trumpet of the Swan” and a copy of “Charlotte’s Web” to Susan Turner of Lonesome Lake. And thanks for your advice.

  I couldn’t resist writing a poem about Bella Coola when I came across the name.

  I had a girl named Bella Coola,

  And she was full of fun and moola,

  But when I pressed my suit undoola

  It seemed to make my Bella coola.

  So much for British Columbia.

  I worked for the Seattle Times for a year in the far distant past, but they never sent me to Lonesome Lake. Usually they just sent me to fly low over Lake Washington looking for dead bodies. I saw Mount Rainier twice.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To HOWARD CUSHMAN

  North Brooklin

  February 18 [1971]

  Dear Cush:

  Cornellians are great readers of the newspaper. Before your swan clipping arrived, Spud Phillips (Phi Gamma Delta) came through with it—his from the Milwaukee Journal. Those Lonesome Lake Turners sure get around. They were in Life a while back, I seem to remember. I’ve already queried Mistress Connelly about my sending a book to young Miss Turner. Just a question, really, of whether any Turner wants to add the weight of a book to the backpack—72 miles of mountain trails. I like the name Bella Coola, anyway. . . .

  About this being the glad Spring of our 50th (with you cheating a little on it), I find my enthusiasm for a trip down memory lane something less than wild. Unwild, or tame, is what it is. I suspect that the sight of the campus and the faces of my classmates, those dear dead faces and those unremembered nicknames, would sink me in a pit of melancholy and start me on a round of serious drinking. If I’m going to go somewhere and get drunk, I don’t want to be wearing a funny hat and a badge with my name on it. In short, I’m not planning a trip to Ithaca in June. What I may do, maybe next spring (1972, which is Hotspur’s 50th), is drive to Ithaca in a small wagon loaded with boxes of my so-called literary papers, which are now in my attic and which I have promised to that boxlike library. If that journey comes off, you shall go along as navigator, and we will pause at every friendly tavern from here to there, to refresh our tired old selves.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  • White was increasingly uneasy about Deitch’s plans for Charlotte. So, it turned out, was Sagittarius. A month after the following letter was written, Sagittarius turned the project over to Hanna-Barbera Productions in Hollywood.

  To J. G. GUDE

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  April 10, 1971

  Dear Jap:

  I saw only a tiny fragment of Deitch’s treatment, but it was enough to make me uneasy. And I’ve been uneasy from the very start because of the Czech locale. Sagittarius has spent enough in airplane fares alone to have offset any gain.

  If Deitch plans to make “Charlotte’s Web” a picture for adults, then he doesn’t understand the story and should be dropped. If he has taken the joy out of the tale, he already has two strikes against him. If he is groping for conflict, he is groping in the dark. If he is phasing Fern out of the story he might as well be phasing Scarlett out of “Gone With the Wind.” Fern is built-in, and nobody in his right mind would want to yank her. . . .

  The first letter I had from Deitch unnerved me. He seemed to be searching for moral implications. He was analyzing the bejesus out of the story instead of accepting it, the way children do. He seemed to want to make the story serve some ends of his own—I’m not sure what. Anybody who can’t accept the miracle of the web shouldn’t try to film it. . . .

  As for music, I agree with you that music is very important, but Deitch seems to want to introduce a lot of songs and turn the thing into a sort of musical. I’m distrustful of this, and the one song he sent me was way off base. You could, of course, weave “Charlotte’s Web” into a musical comedy, and maybe some day it will be done. But right now, I think the most promising approach is to keep the story right on course and not interrupt it every few minutes with a song. . . .

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To MASON TROWBRIDGE

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  May 7 [1971]

  Dear Mason:

  What I really need is a trio of resident internists to look after Katharine and me, and a broody Muscovy duck to sit on goose eggs. I have a young goose that has laid 26 eggs and is still producing. She has seemingly no intention to sit down—likes to be up and around.

  But yours is a handsome offer. Right now I wouldn’t know how to cope with a trio of Wyandottes, short of constructing a separate condominium for them. My poultry operation is computerized and automated and has no truck with the fancy. I shudder to think what would happen if I were to introduce three fashion plates into my henpen. And of course it would be out of the question to introduce them into my brooder house, whose occupants are only 21⁄2 weeks old.

  The rooster whets my appetite, though. I’ve never employed a rooster with my flock of laying hens, since my eggs go to market (I trade them against my grocery bill). But my hens have always struck me as sex-starved and frustrated, with an occasional outbreak of Lesbianism. I have a neighbor who is an organic enthusiast, and she tells me that fertile eggs don’t build up a man’s cholesterol count the way infertile eggs do. She has never explained this phenomenon to me, but it appears to be widely accepted among the devout. Anyway, if you still have a Wyandotte male in the fall, when my pullets are housed, I might like to introduce him to the harem. He’d better eat plenty of wheat germ meanwhile, as I usually have 24 young females. (Silver Cross.) Thanks for yr offer. Let us keep in touch. Do you want any goslings?

  Andy

  • Efforts were being made to preserve the house on Cornell’s campus of Andrew D. White, first president of the university. Professor Henry Guerlac was a prime mover in the project.

  To HENRY GUERLAC

  North Brooklin, Maine

  May 15, 1971

  Dear Mr. Guerlac:

  I’ll be glad to befriend the Andrew D. White house, and you may use my name. I find it hard to recall the house, after these many years, but if it has a garden and the usual number of mice and will shelter the humanities and yourself, then I am for restoring it. After all, it was President White who, in those happy days, expelled a student for killing a chipmunk with his cane. . . .

  With best wishes.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To MILTON GREENSTEIN

  North Brooklin, Maine

  May 23, 1971

  Dear Milt:

  I have just received my second payment from Sagittarius Productions, so I have money to invest. I plan to give some of it away to Worthy Causes, and put the rest to work.

  Have you any suggestion for U.S. bond
s or Treasury notes?

  I tried to spare you this inquiry by buying a book called “What Shall I Do With My Money?” by Eliot Janeway. But although I’m enjoying the book very much, I find that most of my enjoyment comes from mystification of a high order—I just don’t understand what he is talking about. But I love to read about E bonds being a “legalized swindle.” It’s comforting to know that you can be taken, yet still remain solvent.

  Now that fish are inedible because of mercury, I’m not sure that money has much meaning any more. I may just recycle my paper money. They can make egg cartons out of it, or cheap letterheads for the Wilderness Society.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To GENE DEITCH

  North Brooklin

  June 6, 1971

  Dear Gene:

  I’ve delayed answering your letter because I haven’t known exactly what was going on in the Sagittarius world. Day before yesterday, Edgar Bronfman and Henry White showed up here bringing with them Joseph Barbera, and I learned that you were out of the picture and that the action had shifted to Hollywood and to Hanna-Barbera Productions. . . .

  Even now I don’t know what to say except to tell you how deeply sorry I am about what must be for you a disappointing and frustrating experience. As you know from my early letters in answer to the ones you wrote, I was uneasy from the start about certain aspects of your approach to the story and was unhappy about the small fragment of the treatment you sent. I felt that under the circumstances the proper thing to do was to transmit my reactions and complaints to you direct, and that’s what I did in those letters. I realized, too, that it would be unfair to judge your finished work on such meager evidence as those few pages of treatment. Then later I learned from Jap Gude that others besides myself were uneasy, too.

  I suppose some of my apprehensions and worries arose from my knowing so little about film-making. Some of them came perhaps from a too strong desire to have the book transmitted without change to the screen, even though I know enough to know that this never happens and can’t happen. I was also concerned that the story not pick up meanings or implications that simply aren’t there.

  Anyway, I am truly sorry, Gene, that our brief encounter ends on a sad note. I had not anticipated any such thing, and I did all I knew how to do with my letters of advice and complaint. Perhaps they were more of a hindrance than a help, but they were written in good faith and high hopes, and I was rooting for you as I wrote them. At age 71, there’s one thing I understand fully: the creative life is hell more than half the time, riddled with trials and terrors, and paved with woe. I know what it is like to try to bring something into being, as you’ve been doing the last few months. I know what an unhatched egg does to the spirit.

  Katharine and I, sad and sorry, send our best to you and Zdenka, and our congratulations on your Golden Eagle.1

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To D. ANTHONY ENGLISH

  North Brooklin, Maine

  June 21, 1971

  Dear Mr. English:

  . . . I’m not sure I can meet a mid-November deadline, but I’ll try.1 I would like to see the suggestions in Jack Case’s file unless the material is bulky or voluminous. If it is, perhaps you’d better just send me a summary.

  Another thing I’d like is your own ideas about what needs to be done. The book should not be drastically altered, I feel. This would rob it of its virtue. What chiefly needs doing is to remove certain passages that sound musty and replace them with passages that are in the modern accent. Example: “Winston tastes good” sounds old-hat nowadays—we might be able to come up with something recent and pertinent.

  The book carries a word list (Chapter IV), and one obvious task is to add to this list and subtract from it. Any nominations you have will be gratefully received. There are always new, interesting words cropping up in our usage. “Flammable,” for instance, should be in the book—a word devised to keep people from getting killed. And there are the new horribles, like “oriented” and “thrust” and “relevant” and “hopefully.”. . . .

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To WILLIAM MAXWELL

  N. Brooklin

  July 29 [1971]

  Dear Bill:

  For your kind words in Katharine’s letter thanks. I was very pleased that you liked the piece,1 as I came close to abandoning it after a couple of tries. You were the first person I heard from except Shawn, and I never can tell what Bill really thinks about a piece, he is so polite. One more barnyard story from me and the magazine will have to change its name to the Rural New Yorker.

  My birds are shedding now, and I’m enclosing two feathers from the young gander; you can make them into pens for Kate and Brookie [Maxwell’s daughters] so they will grow up to be writers. Am also enclosing three snapshots, which can be thrown away.

  The goose I called Liz in the story hatched eight goslings a week ago. They were immediately adopted by their aunt and uncle, leaving their true parents with nothing but their memories. This was more than I could take in the way of domestic injustice, so I threw the young gander and Apathy in the clink and restored the baby geese to their mother and father. I run a complicated shop here—it makes Baby Lenore seem simple. One of the strange things that happened with the first brood about which I wrote was a return engagement between the old gander and the young gander. This took place on the day when the little family was making its first trip to the pond—always a hazardous time on account of the cattle. I watched their progress down through the lane, then saw that the old gander, who had been nursing his wounds and broken pride for three or four days, was also watching their progress, only he was already down there in the pasture. He has, after all, had years of experience with cattle, and apparently the minute he realized that the young male who had deposed him was about to undertake the job of escorting the goslings through enemy lines, all his old wrath returned. He waited till the whole troupe came through the pasture bars, whereupon he threw himself on the young gander, beat the daylights out of him, reoccupied the throne, and stood off the steers and heifers while the goose and goslings hustled to the pond. As soon as they were safely afloat, he joined them. Oddly enough, so did the young gander after he had dusted himself off, and there was a temporary truce during the swimming hour. When the hour was up, the old boy escorted everybody back to the bars and the safety of the lane, and then returned into exile, reinstating the young leader. It was something. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed the whole thing from start to finish. That old expression crazy-as-a-goose is invalid, without meaning, and void.

  I didn’t intend to inflict more of my weird tales on you. Just wanted to thank you. Best to Emmy and the girls.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To WAYNE CHATTERTON

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [early August? 1971]

  Dear Mr. Chatterton:

  Nothing Woollcott did or thought escaped notice.1 He saw to that. His best writing, it seems to me, was his early drama criticism; his report on a play was usually instructive, clear, and balanced. As a teller of tales, I found him fancy, flirtatious, and repetitious. The one-time head of the New Yorker’s make-up department always referred to him as “Old Foolish.”

  There is a good short estimate of Woollcott in Brooks Atkinson’s recent book “Broadway,” beginning on page 161. Atkinson points out that he was “famous for his enthusiasms”—a true remark. In later years, when he went on radio, this natural enthusiasm of his rather got the better of him, and he became the darling of a whole continentful of sentimental old ladies, who could hardly wait for the next broadcast.

  I’m not a good source on Woollcott—he was a bit before my time, and I did not attend the Round Table luncheons. There would be no point in talking with me about him—there are too many other people around who can speak with so much more authority and in so much more detail. All I know about Woollcott is what you can find in any reference library.

  Sincerely,


  E. B. White

  To GRETA LEE AND PARKER BANZHAF

  North Brooklin

  August 21 [1971]

  Dear Greta Lee and Parker:

  This morning is hot and sticky, and I’m sitting here in the boathouse thinking of my sins and watching the tide creep in. When it gets to highwater mark where the telltale residue of rockweed shows where the last tide ended, I will walk out on the wharf carrying my rusty thermometer, take the temperature of the flood, and the temperature will be 62°, and I will then walk back, replace the thermometer on its shelf, and resign myself to the idea of not taking a swim. Jones meanwhile will have taken one and will come indoors smelling of Jones.

  The summer is all but gone, and it passes so quickly nowadays. Roger and his wife were nearby in a rented cottage in July, and we had many a visit with our new adoptive grandson, John Henry Angell, a merry, agreeable child. He had his first birthday here and is now (we are told) walking. I have allowed myself to be backed up against the wall and saddled with a new project—revising “The Elements of Style” for Macmillan, who want the stuff in time for spring publication, which means a November deadline. The book has grown whiskers and does need some attention, but it’s not the kind of work I find easy or pleasurable or both. Yesterday I worked on it all morning and ended up so dizzy I could hardly find my way through an ear of corn. K is very good about helping me, but in the end it is I who have to get it all down on paper. . . .

  Haying is over, the barn swallows are packing their little bags for the trip south, and the race track at the Fair grounds is being groomed for the Labor Day weekend trotting. I have just about quit trying to drive an automobile and have shifted over to a bicycle, which is easier on my head even if harder on my seat. And that’s the news—and as you see, there isn’t any. Excuse a dull letter. It carries our love to all of you, as ever.

  Andy

  To HARRIET WALDEN

  North Brooklin, Maine

  3 September 1971

  Dear Harriet:

  Thank you for your characteristically prompt, dynamic, thrustful attention to my request for a copy of Bunny Wilson’s Uptight. I can’t thank you enough, but I can at least enclose my meaningful check for $12.20. (And now to remember to do so.) I am sure Katharine will be pleased with the gift, as she has expressed an almost overpowering desire for the book. Wilson is, after all, the Dean of American Letters—it now shows in his face. I am the Hall Porter of American Letters, and it is beginning to show in mine. (Blotches.)