Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Safekeeping the items of enchantment

 In 1956, the circus came to town, and a writer went to watch a young woman, a trick rider, practice with a horse for 10 minutes.

E.B. White’s essay “The Ring of Time” captured the moment. The essay has a line that gets to question of why we human beings write.

 

As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost.

 

The world has many items of enchantment. It takes different types of writers — different kinds of human beings — to see and appreciate them all. 

• E.B. White’s “The Ring of Time” in The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Philip Lopate; New York: Anchor Books, 1995, pp. 538-44. The quotation is on p. 539. The essay is online here:

http://www.brunswick.k12.me.us/hdwyer/the-ring-of-time-by-e-b-white-3/

at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

In the woodlot

 It’s hard to say why I love working in the woodlot, but there’s this: A rowdy goose came over low. It was not a flight of geese, just one g...

  • Lesson 1, with lemons
     I don’t think about schools I should have attended or degrees I should have earned. I do think about teachers I should have had. Kenneth La...
  • William Carlos Williams's place
      William Carlos Williams is a poet of place. I wouldn’t say he was interested in   environment   — that’s too broad a word — or in a place ...
  • The Professor and the Kansas boy
     The Professor in Willa Cather’s  The Professor’s House  is Godfrey St. Peter. His family life is changing. His daughters are grown and marr...