Status Updates From Essays of E.B. White

How much did I like Blue Moon? Turns out Lorenz Hart and E.B. White never even met in real life and I’m still running to read his essays. Though of course already I’m seeing that I think the choice of White, specifically, was far from arbitrary.

In any event, the White style of essay is extinct in any meaningful sense. Hard to say we suffer greatly from its lack, but once you notice— it’s hard to ignore.

“Justice will find a home where there is a synthesis of liberty and unity in a framework of government.”

“All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.”

“I know, too, that on some not too distant night, somewhere in a pond or ditch or low place, a frog will awake, raise his voice high in praise, and be joined by others. I will feel a whole lot better when I hear the frogs.”

“Perhaps success in the future will depend partly on our ability to generate cheap power, but I think it will depend to a greater extent on our ability to resist a technological formula that is sterile: peas without pageantry, corn without coon, knowledge without wisdom, kitchens without a warm stove.”