Essays of E. B. White

F
OREWORD

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
THE FARM

G
OOD-BYE TO
F
ORTY-EIGHTH
S
TREET

H
OME
-C
OMING

A R
EPORT IN
S
PRING

D
EATH OF A
P
IG

T
HE
E
YE OF
E
DNA

C
OON
T
REE

A R
EPORT IN
J
ANUARY

T
HE
W
INTER OF THE
G
REAT
S
NOWS

R
IPOSTE

T
HE
G
EESE

II
THE PLANET

L
ETTER FROM THE
E
AST

B
EDFELLOWS

S
OOTFALL AND
F
ALLOUT

U
NITY

III
THE CITY

T
HE
W
ORLD OF
T
OMORROW

H
ERE
I
S
N
EW
Y
ORK

IV
FLORIDA

O
N A
F
LORIDA
K
EY

T
HE
R
ING OF
T
IME

W
HAT
D
O
O
UR
H
EARTS
T
REASURE?

V
MEMORIES

A
FTERNOON OF AN
A
MERICAN
B
OY

F
AREWELL
, M
Y
L
OVELY
!

T
HE
Y
EARS OF
W
ONDER

O
NCE
M
ORE TO THE
L
AKE

VI
DIVERSIONS AND OBSESSIONS

T
HE
S
EA AND THE
W
IND
T
HAT
B
LOWS

T
HE
R
AILROAD

VII
BOOKS, MEN, AND WRITING

T
HE
S
T.
N
ICHOLAS
L
EAGUE

A S
LIGHT
S
OUND AT
E
VENING

S
OME
R
EMARKS ON
H
UMOR

D
ON
M
ARQUIS

W
ILL
S
TRUNK

M
R
. F
ORBUSH'S
F
RIENDS

E. B. White

About the Author

Also by E. B. White

Copyright

About the Publisher

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that
everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.

There are as many kinds of essays as there are human attitudes or poses, as many essay flavors as there are Howard Johnson ice creams. The essayist arises in the morning and, if he has work to do, selects his garb from an unusually extensive wardrobe: he can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter—philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil's advocate, enthusiast. I like the essay, have always liked it, and even as a child was at work, attempting to inflict my young thoughts and experiences on others by putting them on paper. I early broke into print in the pages of
St. Nicholas.
I tend still to fall back on the essay form (or lack of form) when an idea strikes me, but I am not fooled about the place of the essay in twentieth-century American letters—it stands a short distance down the line. The essayist, unlike the novelist, the poet, and the playwright, must be content in his self-imposed role of second-class citizen. A writer who has his sights trained on the Nobel Prize or other earthly triumphs had best write a novel, a poem, or a play, and leave the essayist to ramble about, content with living a free life and enjoying the satisfactions of a somewhat undisciplined existence. (Dr. Johnson called the essay “an irregular, undigested piece”; this happy practitioner has no wish to quarrel with the good doctor's characterization.)

There is one thing the essayist cannot do, though—he cannot indulge himself in deceit or in concealment, for he will be found out in no time. Desmond MacCarthy, in his introductory remarks to the 1928 E. P. Dutton & Company edition of Montaigne, observes that Montaigne “had the gift of a natural candour. . . .” It is the basic ingredient. And even the essayist's escape from discipline is only a partial escape: the essay, although a relaxed form, imposes its own disciplines, raises its own problems, and these disciplines and problems soon become apparent and (we all hope) act as a deterrent to anyone wielding a pen merely because he entertains random thoughts or is in a happy or wandering mood.

I think some people find the essay the last resort of the egoist, a much too self-conscious and self-serving form for their taste; they feel that it is presumptuous of a writer to assume that his little excursions or his small observations will interest the reader. There is some justice in their complaint. I have always been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egoistical; to write of myself to the extent I have done indicates a too great attention to my own life, not enough to the lives of others. I have worn many shirts, and not all of them have been a good fit. But when I am discouraged or downcast I need only fling open the door of my closet, and there, hidden behind everything else, hangs the mantle of Michel de Montaigne, smelling slightly of camphor.

The essays in this collection cover a long expanse of time, a wide variety of subjects. I have chosen the ones that have amused me in the rereading, along with a few that seemed to have the odor of durability clinging to them. Some, like “Here Is New York,” have been seriously affected by the passage of time and now stand as period pieces. I wrote about New York in the summer of 1948, during a hot spell. The city I described has disappeared, and another city has emerged in its place—one that I'm not familiar with. But I remember the former one, with longing and with love. David McCord, in his book
About Boston
tells of a journalist from abroad visiting this country and seeing New York for the first time. He reported that it was “inspiring but temporary in appearance.” I know what he means. The last time I visited New York, it seemed to have suffered a personality change, as though it had a brain tumor as yet undetected.

Two of the Florida pieces have likewise experienced a sea change. My remarks about the condition of the black race in the South have happily been nullified, and the pieces are merely prophetic, not definitive.

To assemble these essays I have rifled my other books and have added a number of pieces that are appearing for the first time between covers. Except for extracting three chapters, I have let “One Man's Meat” alone, since it is a sustained report of about five years of country living—a report I prefer not to tamper with. The arrangement of the book is by subject matter or by mood or by place, not by chronology. Some of the pieces in the book carry a dateline, some do not. Chronology enters into the scheme, but neither the book nor its sections are perfectly chronological. Sometimes the reader will find me in the city when he thinks I am in the country, and the other way round. This may cause a mild confusion; it is unavoidable and easily explained. I spent a large part of the first half of my life as a city dweller, a large part of the second half as a countryman. In between, there were periods when nobody, including myself, quite knew (or cared) where I was: I thrashed back and forth between Maine and New York for reasons that seemed compelling at the time. Money entered into it, affection for
The New Yorker
magazine entered in. And affection for the city.

I have finally come to rest.

E. B.
W
HITE
    

April 1977

Of the thirty-one essays in this collection, twenty-two appeared originally
in
The New Yorker.
“Farewell, My Lovely!” a collaboration with Richard L. Strout, appeared first in
The New Yorker
under that title, later as a small book called
Farewell to Model T
, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. “Death of a Pig” appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly.
“Riposte” was published on the
New York Times
Op-Ed Page, under the title “Farmer White's Brown Eggs.” “Here Is New York” appeared first as an article in
Holiday
, then as a small book, published by Harper & Brothers. Two essays, “On a Florida Key” and “Once More to the Lake,” were originally published in
Harper's Magazine
, in the One Man's Meat series. “The Sea and the Wind that Blows” first appeared in the
Ford Times
, and “A Slight Sound at Evening” was originally published in the
Yale Review
under the title “Walden—1954.” The remarks on humor in Chapter VII formed part of an introduction to
A Subtreasury of American Humor
, published by Coward McCann. The piece on Don Marquis in the same chapter was taken from an introduction to
the lives and times of archy and mehitabel
, published by Doubleday.

T
URTLE
B
AY
, N
OVEMBER
12, 1957

For some weeks now I have been engaged in dispersing the contents
of this apartment, trying to persuade hundreds of inanimate objects to scatter and leave me alone. It is not a simple matter. I am impressed by the reluctance of one's worldly goods to go out again into the world. During September I kept hoping that some morning, as by magic, all books, pictures, records, chairs, beds, curtains, lamps, china, glass, utensils, keepsakes would drain away from around my feet, like the outgoing tide, leaving me standing silent on a bare beach. But this did not happen. My wife and I diligently sorted and discarded things from day to day, and packed other objects for the movers, but a six-room apartment holds as much paraphernalia as an aircraft carrier. You can whittle away at it, but to empty the place completely takes real ingenuity and great staying power. On one of the mornings of disposal, a man from a second-hand bookstore visited us, bought several hundred books, and told us of the death of his brother, the word “cancer” exploding in the living room like a time bomb detonated by his grief. Even after he had departed with his heavy load, there seemed to be almost as many books as before, and twice as much sorrow.

Every morning, when I left for work, I would take something in my hand and walk off with it, for deposit in the big municipal wire trash basket at the corner of Third, on the theory that the physical act of disposal was the real key to the problem. My wife, a strategist, knew better and began quietly mobilizing the forces that would eventually put our goods to rout. A man could walk away for a thousand mornings carrying something with him to the corner and there would still be a home full of stuff. It is not possible to keep abreast of the normal tides of acquisition. A home is like a reservoir equipped with a check valve: the valve permits influx but prevents outflow. Acquisition goes on night and day—smoothly, subtly, imperceptibly. I have no sharp taste for acquiring things, but it is not necessary to desire things in order to acquire them. Goods and chattels seek a man out; they find him even though his guard is up. Books and oddities arrive in the mail. Gifts arrive on anniversaries and fête days. Veterans send ballpoint pens. Banks send memo books. If you happen to be a writer, readers send whatever may be cluttering up their own lives; I had a man once send me a chip of wood that showed the marks of a beaver's teeth. Someone dies, and a little trickle of indestructible keepsakes appears, to swell the flood. This steady influx is not counterbalanced by any comparable outgo. Under ordinary circumstances, the only stuff that leaves a home is paper trash and garbage; everything else stays on and digs in.