According to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, heard on National Public Radio, today is the anniversary of the birthday of a beloved writer: E.B. White, author of Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little, and co-author of the classic writer's guide, The Elements of Style. Prized among my book collection is a slim volume of his poems, letters, essays. The jacket is frayed from use, and the book is lined through in pencil, where I have noted particular passages of interest. Sadly the book is still in a box with most of my others, awaiting shelves. Otherwise I would take it down now and regale you with quotes.
As it is I must steal a quote from Keiller's website. Although White was a consummate New Yorker, who loved the city and wrote about it often, he also thoroughly enjoyed the country and this quote is appropriate to this blog and my life now:
Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do
anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side,
where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy,
variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its
wild embrace.
Thank you, Elwin Brooks White, for your words through the years.
