Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  I don’t expect to come to New York “to deal with the publisher.” The only way to deal with him would be to shoot him, and I don’t want to spare the ammunition. The guy who got me embroiled in syntax and rhetoric is happily dead. His name was Jack Case and he was a very nice fellow although I’ve never forgiven him. This morning I devoted to The Hyphen. Most of what I know about grammar (or anything else) comes from reading newsbreaks, and I am going to explain the Hyphen by citing the sad case of the merger of two newspapers in Chattanooga, which came out to read: CHATTANOOGA NEWS-FREE PRESS. That’s my favorite hyphen. It’s even better than some of the hyphens in Fowler, if I do say so, and I do.

  Mary McCarthy, the writer, stopped by here yesterday with her husband, Jim West, and her friend Hannah Arendt. They brought us some earthenware flower pots and a jar of crabapple jelly. They were on their way to dinner at the Yglesiases.1

  . . . Thank you again for arranging the book affair. I can’t imagine Edmund Wilson stapling a book bag, can you?

  Yrs,

  EBW

  • Eleanor Gould Packard, known at The New Yorker as Miss Gould, had been a copy editor and authority on grammar and style at the magazine for many years. When The Elements of Style first appeared, she had bought a copy, marked it up as she might mark a raw proof, and slid it into a drawer of her desk. White knew nothing about this—Miss Gould was too shy to admit doing it—but later, when The Elements was up for revision, White asked her to help him. She agreed, and revealed that she had in her possession a marked-up first edition.

  To ELEANOR GOULD PACKARD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  12 September 1971

  Dear Eleanor:

  That isn’t a millstone around your neck, it’s a milestone. Of course I want to see the marked book. As near as I can make out, practically every grammarian in the land, irritated beyond belief by having an upstart crow like me edit a rulebook, grabbed “The Elements” before it had even cooled off and marked the bejesus out of it. Macmillan has already sent me the inflammatory reactions of four of these indignant pros, and I have dutifully sifted their cries of rage and scorn, incorporating a few in the text, hurling the others into the sea.

  I would rather have yours than anybody else’s, and if I had known that Macmillan planned to pay four teachers to take me and Strunk apart, I would have instantly suggested that they turn first to you. But I didn’t know what was going on—they just sprung it on me. Even so, I may be able to wheedle a payment for you if you’ll send me your marked copy.

  I’m adding quite a few words and phrases to Chapter IV and am deleting a few. In general, I’m trying to hold the little book to its original size. Brevity is of the essence. As Strunk made clear in his introductory remarks, he was not attempting to survey the whole field.

  Thanks for your recommendations for the list of reference books. Just what I need. I’m not familiar with the Bernstein books and don’t know Bernstein. As for my “having fun with the revision,” I would much rather be sorting the dirty clothes.

  Yrs,

  Andy White

  To WAYNE CHATTERTON

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [early October? 1971]

  Dear Mr. Chatterton:

  I think the proper way for you to get clearance from me on quotes or paraphrasing is to show me the material when you get it on paper. This shouldn’t be much of a burden, as my contribution is brief.

  I had nothing to do with Profiles, but I know, in general, how they originated. A Profile was simply a sketch of a living person, pithy but in depth. It was a sort of photograph in words. A great many facts had to be assembled, and the facts had to be (and were) checked out. Sometimes, in the case of well-endowed writers, there could be a point-of-view, showing the subject in full color. (One of the great early Profiles was of Mike Romanoff, by Alva Johnston.) Gibbs did a Profile of Woollcott—not well received by the subject, I may add. The New Yorker demanded of a Profile writer brevity, wit, knowledge of the subject, and liveliness of expression. There was nothing particularly new or original about the form—it was simply that The New Yorker decided to do it better, and did.

  I don’t recall that Woollcott ever wrote a Profile, but probably he did. I doubt that his ornate style contributed anything to the form. Mostly, The New Yorker was trying to keep Woollcott from flouncing around. Ross and Woollcott were wartime buddies, but they had many fallings out. Woollcott was a prima donna, and Ross didn’t want prima donnas around the place. Woollcott had mannerisms in writing—he liked to talk about “these old eyes” and he liked words like “reticule” and “tippet”—words that made Ross retch. When Ross decided to run a regular weekly column (“Shouts and Murmurs”) by Woollcott, Ross made it clear he would have nothing to do with editing it—turned the whole business over to Katharine White, who, with an occasional assist from Gibbs, managed to keep the peace and get the column into the magazine. It was, incidentally, the only column The New Yorker ever ran that was “justified”—that is, made to come out to be a certain length, in this case exactly one page of type. This meant cutting or adding. Only time it ever happened, but Woollcott insisted on it and had his way.

  I can’t answer your question about the feasibility or value of a biography of F.P.A. I would imagine that any human being is a fit subject for a biography, given a biographer of sufficient power.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To DAVID DODD

  North Brooklin

  October 27 [1971]

  Dear Dave:

  The boathouse is buzzing with flies this morning, warmed to a frenzy by the combined heat of Indian summer and my schoolhouse stove. The flies are hungry and are particularly fond of ankle meat, damn them. But I wish you could see this beautiful day—not a ripple on the bay, sunlight illuminating the maples and birches, which have hardly faded at all. No killing frost yet.

  I have been busier than a monkey lately—in fact have worked every day, including Sundays and holidays, since the first of August, and am getting sick of work and would like to do a little playing. I’m still slugging away at a revision of “The Elements of Style” for Macmillan. I hate the guts of English grammar, but I agreed to revise the text for spring publication. Mid-November deadline. The only fun I get out of it is finding nutty sentences in the New York Times, like the one I spotted yesterday: “The first human sperm bank was officially opened Friday with semen samples from 18 men in a stainless steel refrigerator tank.” (Those poor chilly fellows!) And I am also at work trying to get the bugs out of the screenplay of “Charlotte’s Web,” which was written by a Hollywood character whose knowledge of life on a New England farm is sub-marginal. When I finally can’t take any more grammar or screenplay, I hop on my old 3-speed Raleigh bicycle and go scorching up and down the highway to remove the cobwebs. Am considering buying a helmet, against the day of the Great Crash. If I can fall asleep at the wheel of a Mercedes, I ought to be able to go bye-bye at the controls of a bike.

  You will be pleased to learn that my trout began spawning yesterday. They are now more than a foot long, and since the brook up which they travel for their amorous sport has a depth of only about two inches, it is quite a sight. Their dorsal fins are fully exposed. But they are nothing if not game. I must try to get a picture to send you. . . .

  Enough of this. Back to the grindstone. Love to you and Elsie from the both of us.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  • White worked over the screenplay for the movie version of Charlotte’s Web for ten days, annotating it carefully. Hanna-Barbera, however, paid little attention to his suggestions.

  To J. G. GUDE

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  8 November 1971

  Dear Jap:

  I found your letter that I had misplaced. Don’t worry about the pig’s tail drooping. Droop it does.

  The security blanket strikes me as sour. It also seems to be lifted from “Peanuts,” where the blanket is almost a daily feature. Do we hav
e to borrow from Schulz? I think not and I think the blanket is not in the spirit of Ch Web.

  Briefly, my recommendations are

  1. Cut out the dream sequence.

  2. Transpose the Dr. Dorian visit so it takes place after the word has appeared in the web.

  3. Cut the corn out of Henry Fussy and his mother and that violin.

  4. Play the award scene at the Fair for all it’s worth. The pig should faint, Lurvy should dash water on Avery, Avery should clown it up, and the rat should revive the pig by biting his tail. Children know this incident very well indeed and they will feel cheated if they don’t get it. Also, it’s very lively.

  5. Let the story teller say the words that announce the death of Charlotte. It is the last paragraph of Chapter XXI.

  As I look back on the screenplay, it strikes me that not enough faith is placed in the barn and the animals and the web, and this results in quite a buildup of Henry Fussy and boy-meets-girl. K had the same reaction, and she feels strongly about it. Anyway, Charlotte’s Web is not a boy-girl story, it is a study of miracles, tinged with the faint but pervasive odor of the barn. It will stand or fall on the barn. Henry Fussy can’t save it.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To MAURICE ROOT

  North Brooklin, Maine

  15 November 1971

  Dear Dr. Root:

  I am sorry this reply is so long in coming. . . .

  Does the aging brain function better after it accomplishes something? Well, I have been watching the aging brain out of the corner of one eye for about twenty years, and I don’t think I have the answer to that question. . . .

  As for writing, I still write—at age 72. My experience is that I have to struggle harder, tire sooner, and come apart at the seams more completely than was the case when I was young. The aging mind has a bagful of nasty tricks, one of which is to tuck names and words away in crannies where they are not immediately available and where I can’t always find them. This is extremely annoying to a writer, who wants his words where he can reach them.

  When I want to experience a small success these days, I seldom turn to the typewriter; I go out to my workbench and remodel an Express Wagon for a grandson. I find in simple carpentry a chance to slow my aging mind down to a walk. Really the great trouble about the mind, whether aging or not, is that it is always on the go, like a restless person. But, as I say, I can’t answer your question. I hope my mind never rusts out completely, but I’ve already seen the early signs of it, as one sees them on the side of an automobile where a dog has scratched or a coat button struck home.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  • White had been awarded the National Medal for Literature; it was to be presented at ceremonies at Lincoln Center on December 2. William Maxwell stood in for him and read a prepared speech of acceptance. John Updike showed up and delivered some remarks, as did Cass Canfield.

  To WILLIAM MAXWELL

  North Brooklin

  November 19 [1971]

  Dear Bill:

  As you’ve probably discovered by now, I’ve been tapped to receive the medal of the National Book Committee. I don’t feel well enough to make the trip to New York to receive the award on December 2, and when I was talking to Ursula Nordstrom on the phone I had the temerity to drop your name as a possible stand-in for me. This is a dirty trick to play on anyone, and I don’t want you to give the matter a second thought if the idea is repulsive to you. I think Roger would be glad to reach out and grab the medal for me. And a letter that has just arrived from Ursula says that somebody had suggested Updike. So there isn’t going to be any problem. I just don’t want you to feel the slightest obligation in case you get approached. I seldom play dirty tricks on my friends, but I’m not always steady and reliable over the telephone. I don’t really think fast enough to be allowed to use the telephone.

  Yrs,

  Andy

  To MARTHA WHITE

  North Brooklin, Maine

  December 8 [1971]

  Dear Martha:

  The Sierra 200 sounds fine. If it contains grey goose down, it’s practically a member of the family—I’ve known grey geese even longer than I’ve known you. The price is just right, and Grandma and I want to give you and Steven each one of those [sleeping] bags for Christmas....

  Congratulations on making Honors in your work. That’s great! If your American history course is based on Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times it is probably the greatest distortion of history in history, but it must be a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I was reading the same book myself night before last, in preparation for the visit yesterday of Burton Bernstein, who is writing a biography of our old friend Jim Thurber. Burt is the brother of Leonard Bernstein and an awfully pleasant fellow. He had lunch with us (fried scallops) to pick our brains and our memories and spent part of the afternoon with us. Neither dog cared much for him.

  So much depends on the teacher one gets. I wish all your teachers could be interesting and good, but it’s too much to hope for, I guess. You just have to make out with the material at hand.

  As a result of my American Book Committee award last week, my desk is piled higher than usual with unanswered letters. The N.Y. Times yesterday published my acceptance speech (delivered for me by William Maxwell)—with only two errors. Grandma and I are so busy trying to get our income tax for 1970 straightened out, our Christmas and birthday plans straightened out, and our health straightened out, it seems to me we have never been busier in our lives. But we were very glad to get your letter, and I hope the bags will turn out well—specially at 10° below zero.

  Much love,

  Grandpa

  To JOHN UPDIKE

  North Brooklin

  December 11 [1971]

  Dear John:

  Children, on the whole, have an easier time summing me up than you did. I got a letter from a girl this week, saying, “You are a good writer and I was enjoying your book until our dog, Bella, ate it. It was only a paperback.” (Writers have so much to contend with—I now have this dog, Bella.) Another child wrote and said, “It is easy to know what you are from reading your books, you are a veterinary, a teacher, and a nomad.” You see? I’m no problem.

  Your eulogistic ramble, which gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction, arrived in this house about forty minutes after a stomach bug. That’s why you haven’t heard from me sooner. I saw my comical wife scratching off a couple of notes to you, to keep your courage up, and I hope you realize how much it meant to me that you went to New York and testified. Bill Maxwell phoned me that same evening to report in. He said you began to stutter, and the more you stuttered the more effective you became. Today, I began brooding happily about the effect of a stutter on those deathless lines of mine: “In the days of my youth . . .” All you had to do was repeat West Twelfth Street a couple of times and I’d soon be up to Thirty-sixth Street writhing with Truth near where the old Rogers Peet used to be. Anyway, I’ve always liked that poem [“Village Revisited”], when no one was looking, and I’m glad you worked it into the text.

  It is difficult for me to believe that your mother bought a farm on the strength of reading “One Man’s Meat.” It is very scary—to realize what can happen. But if I never did anything in my life but discomfort you with apples and start your wheels turning, I have served American letters as well as any man could hope for. You say you can’t remember what I said when Katharine and I showed up at your place in Oxford. I can’t either, but I would be willing to bet that I came through the door apologizing for the liveried chauffeur. He was my first liveried chauffeur (his name was ’arry ’unt), and I recall feeling acutely embarrassed at pulling this sort of elegance on a young man who hadn’t even had time to write “Poorhouse Fair.” I also remember demanding gin at a restaurant where it wasn’t readily available. Children are right—I’m just a nomad.

  I can’t pronounce oeuvre and the word has never appeared in my corpus, as I am unwilling to use any word I can’t pronounce. (Anot
her word I can’t pronounce is genre, which I call John; and genre has never appeared, either.) So I was glad you worked oeuvre in, as it set me right back where I belong, among the flashy illiterates—medalists who ought to turn in their medals. Writers really take their worst shellacking from other writers, like the one you and I took from Rex Stout the other day [in a newspaper interview] when he said you were being pretentious with the title Redux and that although my stuff didn’t amount to much I never made a mistake. Wait till Bella catches up with Stout!

  And speaking of children, please give my love to your ten-year-old daughter who supplied you with the line I cherish most among all the words of praise you spent so freely and so movingly. I was really touched and heartened by your piece, and particularly by what you said about Katharine, who should get medals but doesn’t.

  I must tell you about the next oddity that is shaping up in my life. A madman named Reginald Allen, whom you may know, has persuaded the Philadelphia Orchestra to put on a children’s number based on “The Trumpet of the Swan.” It is scheduled for May 13. I cut the story to four typewritten pages (which should earn me a job with the Reader’s Digest), and the music is now under construction. Allen told me I would simply have to come to Philadelphia for the occasion, and to nip this in the bud I wrote back that I would come only if I were allowed to play a musical instrument with the Orchestra. I figured this would stop him cold. Not at all, he has it all arranged: White on triangle. I can already envision what will happen if I have the bad judgment to accept this larkish invitation. May 13 will be the day the Domino Theory is proved in Philadelphia. I will start drinking early to brace myself for the platform appearance, and just before my one note on the triangle comes due, I will slump forward, dead. My music-stand will catch the bassoonist in the groin, and he will take out all the rest of the wood winds, and the wood winds will take out the brasses and the brasses will take out the strings. It will be like the scene in the book, when the old cob breaks up a music store in Billings. (I keep thinking of good ways to die, and this now heads my list.)