Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  My affection for the free press in a democracy goes back a long way. My love for it was my first and greatest love. If I felt a shock at the news of the Salisbury–Xerox–Esquire arrangement, it was because the sponsorship principle seemed to challenge and threaten everything I believe in: that the press must not only be free, it must be fiercely independent—to survive and to serve. Not all papers are fiercely independent, God knows, but there are always enough of them around to provide a core of integrity and an example that others feel obliged to steer by. The funded article is not in itself evil, but it is the beginning of evil and it is an invitation to evil. I hope the invitation will not again be extended, and, if extended, I hope it will be declined.

  About a hundred and fifty years ago, Tocqueville wrote: “The journalists of the United States are generally in a very humble position, with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind.” Today, we chuckle at this antique characterization. But about fifty years ago, when I was a young journalist, I had the good fortune to encounter an editor who fitted the description quite closely. Harold Ross, who founded the New Yorker, was deficient in education and had—at least to all outward appearances—a vulgar turn of mind. What he did possess, though, was the ferocity of independence. He was having a tough time finding money to keep his floundering little sheet alive, yet he was determined that neither money nor influence would ever corrupt his dream or deflower his text. His boiling point was so low as to be comical. The faintest suggestion of the shadow of advertising in his news and editorial columns would cause him to erupt. He would explode in anger, the building would reverberate with his wrath, and his terrible swift sword would go flashing up and down the corridors. For a young man, it was an impressive sight and a memorable one. Fifty years have not dimmed for me either the spectacle of Ross’s ferocity or my own early convictions—which were identical with his. He has come to my mind often while I’ve been composing this reply to your inquiry.

  I hope I’ve clarified by a little bit my feelings about the anatomy of the press and the dangers of sponsorship of articles. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak my piece.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  [Mr. Jones wrote and thanked White for “telling me what I didn’t want to hear.” In May another letter arrived from Jones saying that Xerox had decided not to underwrite any more articles in the press and that they were convinced it was “the right decision.”]

  To ROGER ANGELL

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  May 20, 1976

  Dear Rog:

  I thought the closing words of your baseball piece were magnificent, sad and ominous though they were. I have the same feeling about other aspects of American life having nothing to do with sports or baseball, and your expression of this feeling touched me closely. Those quiet slow afternoons in the small parks in the practice season recalled to me the different (and better) pace of the railroad travel that I used to know and enjoy before the Concorde arrived and the trains disappeared. It’s not entirely a matter of the great sums of money spent, it seems to be essentially a matter of the spiritual acceptance of What’s New, or What’s Greater—as though there were something wrong or disappointing about what isn’t new or what isn’t greater.

  Anyway, it’s new and exciting to have someone exploring baseball at the depth you have ventured into, and I just want to say that I think it’s a great piece. . . .

  Yrs,

  Andy

  P.S. An actor named Gary Merrill here today, former husband of Bette Davis. Just popped in to say hello.

  XV

  GOOD-BYE TO KATHARINE

  1977–1981

  * * *

  • On July 20, 1977, after nearly forty-eight years of marriage, White lost his wife, Katharine, to congestive heart failure. She had been rushed by ambulance to the Blue Hill Hospital, where he spent the afternoon sitting with her. Roger and Carol Angell and Joel and Allene White were there, as well. Later, White prepared a short script for her graveside service, attended only by the family, and included his poem about her, “Lady Before Breakfast,” as she had requested, but he could not bring himself to attend. In the previous months, Katharine had been helping him keep up with the great quantity of mail from his Letters book. Now, in addition to that, hundreds of condolence letters poured in from family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The mail quickly became so overwhelming that he had a card printed:

  To all who wrote to wish me well,

  To all who like the Letters,

  I send this printed card of thanks.

  (It frees me from my fetters.)

  I’d hoped to write a full reply

  To each, to say “I love you.”

  But I must face the sticky truth:

  There’s just too many of you.

  To JON STABLEFORD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  August 10, 1977

  Dear Jon:

  I have received, at a guess, something like four or five hundred letters since the death of your grandmother. The one that came from you is one of a few that I feel deeply about, not only because of what you said but because of the way you said it. Thanks, Jon, for writing.

  Life is quite tough for me at the moment because, in addition to trying to recover from the shock of losing my wife of forty-eight years, I am having to execute the estate—which is a fairly complex one involving, among other matters, hundreds of literary papers and books and documents that she willed to Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Yale, and Bowdoin. A lot of the stuff is family papers from the Sergeant and Shepley ancestors, and I’m not very familiar with the material. Alice Angell stayed on with me after Roger and Carol left, and she has been a great help and has kept me company. She leaves tomorrow for Mystic and Kansas.

  I was so glad that you were able to be here on July 23. I wish we had had more time to be together. Thank you again for your lovely letter.

  Love,

  Andy

  P.S. Am enclosing a Xerox of the New Yorker obituary.1

  To JON STABLEFORD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  October 25, 1977

  Dear Jon:

  It was good to get your letter, and I was much interested to hear all about your new venture in South Strafford and your life among the thorn apples. I don’t seem to know the thorn apple and would guess that it is not found here in this coastal zone. When I want to get innoculated, I go into my blackberry patch among the hornets and the needles. It must be exciting to be thinking about building a house. My rule of thumb is to figure out exactly what it will cost and then multiply by two. This is known as Andy White’s Law and it has served me well.

  Since your Grandmother died, I have been heavily engaged here administering her estate and seeing that her bequests of books and literary papers are carried out. Although she was forehanded and had the bookshelves listed and earmarked, the whole business became quite complex because of the necessity of inventories and appraisals, which involved lawyers and appraisers and their secretaries, who had to be wined and dined and guided to the proper objects. Last Saturday, a librarian and his wife arrived from Bryn Mawr, packed five hundred and fifty books in boxes, loaded them into a rented van, ate lunch with me, and drove off. These books were by New Yorker writers and editors and other people connected with K’s editorship of the magazine. They will form a separate archive at the Bryn Mawr Library, together with her literary correspondence, which covers a long span of years and a great many recipients of letters. Prior to this exodus of books, I employed a young friend of mine named Kathy Hall, whom I came to know when she was working on my stuff at Cornell. She was willing to come here and stay for a few days—almost a week—to put in order the Sergeant papers for Yale and the Shepley papers for Bowdoin. This task proved greater than I could cope with, as many of the documents were small withered letters dating from the eighteenth century, and I couldn’t get near them because of my allergy to old manuscripts. Also, I am no good at genealogy and Kathy is a whiz at it. I expect t
his week to send off everything to Yale and Bowdoin. A box has already been shipped to Cornell. The labor has been time-consuming and exhausting as well as melancholy: I now wander about this old house staring into empty shelves and fighting back my memories.

  Some day soon I may start on a brief motor journey, to get a change of scene and to discover whether driving alone around the countryside is pleasurable or merely exhausting. I may visit my friends Dr. and Mrs. Strider in Waterville, if I go, and perhaps I can drop down to Andover and spend a night there at the Inn and see you and Cindy. If I still feel lusty and the November weather isn’t too bleak, I might get over into Vermont. But all this is just in the dream stage at the moment.

  Thanks again for your letter, and please thank Cindy for her kind note about the trinkets.1

  Love,

  Andy

  • Joan Williamson of Lyme, New Hampshire, wrote to say that White’s letter to Cathy Durham [page 437] reminded her of “one written by Louisa May Alcott to a cousin of mine in boarding school in Boston circa 1880.” Williamson copied out the Alcott letter, part of which read: “My books belong to the public, my private life is my own & should be considered sacred by the world. This is not understood in America where if a man or woman does anything to please the public they are at once considered general property & henceforth live in a lantern.”

  To JOAN WILLIAMSON

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  [December 1977]

  Dear Miss Williamson:

  Thanks for letting me see that letter from Louisa May Alcott to your cousin Miss Bodwell. I could have written it myself, only Louisa did it better. A great deal of the trouble, nowadays, for an author, is that teachers all over America are encouraging children to write letters and get in touch. They even have a system now for a telephone hookup. The author receives a letter feeling him out about this and asking him to set a day and an hour when the call can be put through so the children can get on the line and kick things around with their man or their woman. Louisa was quite right—once we’ve done something that pleases the public we are considered general property. A woman showed up at my kitchen door last week who considered me the most general of properties, and she took over the whole place. We had the dickens of a time getting rid of her, as she pushed her way past every thing and every body.

  The only answer is never write anything and get it published. But the hour is late for me and my die is cast. Anyway, I feel closer to Louisa May Alcott, thanks to you.

  Sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To ANDREW A. ROONEY, CBS NEWS

  North Brooklin, Maine

  [January] 1978

  Dear Andy:

  Thanks for your kind invitation to walk about with you in front of a camera. You ask if I have often been asked to do a long conversation on film. No, I was once asked to converse briefly with Martin Agronsky, and I was recently invited to spar with Dick Cavett. So far, nobody has managed to entice me in front of a television camera with my mouth open and my foot in it. And that’s the way I plan to keep it.

  I dislike cameras and airplanes. The camera is unforgiving; the airplane is impractical in thick weather. So I avoid both. But thanks for your invitation to appear and say something about writing, farming, God, tools, friends, and patriotism. All has, I hope, been said—by me, or, better, by somebody else. I can still see Walter Lipmann creeping about on the stones of Latty Cove with the camera trailing him—a really effective pundit.

  Since the death of Katharine last summer, life has changed drastically for me, and I suspect other changes are in store for me, although I am not sure what they will be or how soon they will take place. I am in limbo. The food is good, but nothing else is....

  Please excuse this captious and wandering letter. I just meant to thank you for your invitation.

  Yrs,

  [E. B. White]

  To JON AND CINDY STABLEFORD

  North Brooklin, Maine

  April 8, 1978

  Dear Jon and Cindy:

  It was a week ago that you took me in and restored me to life after that long and tiring journey,1 and I am ashamed that I have not got off a thank-you note before this. My only excuse is that I had never had such an accumulation of backed-up work to return to. My room is still a mare’s nest, although I’ve been digging around in it for seven days. . . .

  The drive home with Henry Allen was uneventful except that in midpassage I managed to break a tooth. We have two dentists in Blue Hill now: one is away on vacation, the other was called away because of sickness in his family. So I am just living with my busted tooth, which luckily does not send out any signals that amount to anything. Jones was so glad to see me back he went all around with me through the rooms, making queer little groans of pleasure, and then took up a stand outside the bathroom door and howled. One day while I was away he found a wool shirt of mine in the living room and proceeded to take it all to pieces, whether from anger or from uneasiness I do not know.

  Thank you again for all you did—for putting me up at the Inn, for wining and dining me, for giving me a restful evening, and for driving me to Freeport. It was a lovely ending to a long trip. I thought the model of your Vermont house looked very promising, and I hope you will both get a lot of fun out of creating something out of nothing.

  We still have snow and ice here, but my goose is laying and the snowdrops are in bloom in the bulb garden. My greenhouse looks like an advertisement for a greenhouse.

  Much love,

  Andy

  To THE HON. EDMUND S. MUSKIE

  UNITED STATES SENATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  North Brooklin, Maine

  [May 1, 1978]

  Dear Ed:

  Thanks for your congratulatory note on my Pulitzer citation. Even at my age, I’d be glad to swap off with you and be asked to crown a beauty queen.

  I’ve always been grateful to you for handing me the big one, that morning at Bob Strider’s house.1

  Sincerely,

  [E.B. White]

  To GLUYAS WILLIAMS

  North Brooklin, Maine

  [May 8, 1978]

  Dear Gluyas:

  The only thing I haven’t managed to do so far is fall and break my hip, but almost all my friends and relatives have accomplished it—and now you. I am so sorry that you had to join the ranks, and on New Year’s day. You must have had quite a party on New Year’s Eve. I hope you are mending well and are cheerful in spite of all.

  Yes, Katharine would have been pleased with my Pulitzer award, and life without her is no bargain for me, awards or no awards. She was the one great award of my life and I am in awe of having received it. I find life difficult without her, not just because she helped me in so many practical ways but because she steadied me day and night, and I now feel unsteady all the time as well as untidy. I can’t seem to keep up with the events of the day, or the contents of my mail sack.

  I wish I could pay you a visit. I don’t get around much, but if I should get to Boston I’m coming out to Newton Centre to say hello. I managed to visit New York for a few days in March but discovered that I don’t get on well with airplanes, or they with me.

  Spring finally reached Maine today—a lovely, windless day of greening earth, newly arrived barn swallows, yellow forsythia, and the sound of frogs. Thanks for your letter.

  Yrs.

  [E.B. White]

  To BILL———

  North Brooklin, Maine

  [May 10, 1978]

  Dear Bill:

  Under separate cover I have dispatched a contribution of $2500 to the American Cancer Society. I have been supporting the Society for many years, having lost a mother and sister to cancer, and I have often wondered whether the Society is spending its money in the best possible way. Most of the money, I gather, goes to research on a cure for cancer, and so far there isn’t any. Much of the money, it seems to me, should go to lobbying against the damned chemicals and pesticides and fungicides and additives and preservatives that cause cancer. Ev
erybody knows they do.

  Yrs,

  [E.B. White]

  To MRS. RAYMOND C. GUTH

  [North Brooklin, Maine]

  January 19 [1979]

  My darling Dotty:

  I want to see you, too. You don’t need any “justification” for coming here to see me—it should be a natural act, like eating. But if you have work on your mind, there is enough work in this house to keep a girl busy as a flea for about eighteen months. You can answer all my backed-up mail, reorganize my so-called filing system, make out my income tax, feed the dogs, supervise my complex medication schedule, keep the wood stove in the living room going, do the newsbreaks, arrange the north porch door at night in such a way that it prevents the pipes in the upstairs bathroom from freezing, call the ambulance when my heart starts one of its comical birdsong imitations, mix the martinis, dispose of everything in the attic, make out the schedule that is supposed to accompany my last will and testament allotting every tangible object in every room to a specific heir, get up the 1979 seed order, find the photographs that the Bryn Mawr library needs for the Katharine exhibit on April 4, correct the galley proofs of “Onward and Upward in the Garden,” and feed the dogs again—they eat every afternoon. And that’s not all. You forgot to add water to the humidifier in the living room when you were in there lighting the stove. I haven’t mentioned the people who sent me gifts at Christmas and who should get a thank-you note. I guess I won’t mention them. Now will you come and see me?