Sunday, August 6, 2023

The art of the item 3

 Rebecca M. Dale, quoting Katherine Hall’s bibliography, says E.B. White wrote 450 signed and 1,350 unsighned pieces for the New Yorker. Some were essays. Some were items in an editorial column, “Notes & Comment.” (White hated the editorial we.)

He often hit on the three themes he said were Thoreau’s:

• A person’s relation to nature.

• A person’s dilemma with society.

• A person’s capacity for elevating his spirit.

Break those three eggs, and you can make an omelet that looks and tastes like an item, the kind that White preferred.

• Source: E.B. White, Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976, Rebecca M. Dale, editor; New York: Harper Perennial, 1990, pp. ix-xi. Her introduction quotes White’s essay “A Slight Sound at Evening” on Thoreau’s three themes.

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