E.B. White met Alice Burchfield during his junior year at Cornell. Their correspondence indicates a mutual attraction, but both were painfully timid in the fledgling romance. White proposed to Burchfield a year before writing this letter; his manner was so guarded, his statements so round-about, that she refused. In order to maintain contact, they agreed to write in “the most orthodox of friendly veins.” Their stunted relationship becomes clear below; White discusses only passing mundanities, leaving behind a palpable absence of his voice and person.
To Alice Burchfield
[Seattle, Washington]
[February 1923]
Friday night
Dear Alice,
…There isn’t anything new. We had a snowstorm a while ago. It wasn’t very much of one, but Seattle thought it was terrible. It was the worst blizzard in seven years, and all the streetcar lines were dead for three days. Employees of the Times were billeted in downtown hotels, and it was very dramatic. If it had been in any eastern city, nobody would have known that it was snowing. But out here, people take weather seriously.
Last night I heard Carl Sandburg speak, and was so pleased I wanted to go right to Chicago. The contrast was all the more striking because of all the businessmen’s luncheons I have gone to in the last five months.
…I’m quite sick of the Times and the dark skies of Seattle, and will be on my way to sunnier places if the spring fever hits me again the way it did the other day. Soon I’ll be out of a job again—which seems to be my native state. I had a lot of fun tonight making out my Income Tax report for the past year. My earnings amounted to $1,002.55. My exemption was $1,000. Therefore the tax was computed on $2.55. Four percent of that equals 10 cents. So I owe my country one dime, and will present myself tomorrow at the Bureau of Internal Revenue and settle up.
…I think if I should walk into the Phi Gam house I’d get kicked out for an old clothes man. —And I just bought a new suit the other day, too: $28.85. Oh, a stunning suit—real western cut, with peg top pants and everything. I’ve got it on now, and can hardly write for looking at myself. I bet if I had known my income tax was going to be so slight I would have really splurged and bought one for $32.50 instead. As it is I’m going to spend the difference on licorice chewing gum, for which I have a great passion…
Yours,
Andy
From Letters of E.B. White. New York: HarperCollins, 2007, p. 61-62.
FURTHER READING
The joys and sorrows of the common man: the legacy of White’s “One Man’s Meat.”
White’s anthropormphisms (which he often used to veil his own feelings).
Recent illustrations for White’s famous book on English grammar, co-authored with William Strunk.