Writings from the New Yorker 1925-1976 Read Free Page B

knows how to live. A turtle, by its admirable habits, gets to the hard core of life. That may be why its arteries are so soft.
    Afterthought: It is worth noting that Chinese do not appear to suffer from arteriosclerosis nearly as much as do Occidentals, and Chinese are heavy eaters of terrapin. Maybe the answer is a double-barrelled one: we should all spend more time on a log in the sun and should eat more turtle soup. With a dash of sherry, of course.

2
    The Word
    VERMIN
    10/7/44
    The mouse of Thought infests my head.
    He knows my cupboard and the crumb.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Vermin! I despise vermin.
    I have no trap, no skill with traps,
    No bait, no hope, no cheese, no bread—
    I fumble with the task to no avail.
    I’ve seen him several times lately.
    He is too quick for me,
    I see only his tail.
    THE COST OF HYPHENS
    12/15/28
    THE PAIN WHICH ATTENDS all literary composition is in-creased, in some cases, by the writer’s knowing how much per word he will receive for his effort. We came upon a writer at his work recently, and were allowed to sit quietly by while he finished his stint. Quite casually he mentioned that he was getting fifty cents a word. A moment or two later his face became contorted with signs of an internal distress. With his hand poised above the machine, he seemed to be fighting something out with himself. Finally he turned to us. “Listen,” he said, grimly, “do you hyphenate ‘willy-nilly’?” We nodded, and saw him wince as he inserted the little mark, at a cost of half a dollar.
    TRAVEL BROCHURE
    1/26/35
    THE ADVENTURE-MAD TRAVEL-BUREAU PEOPLE run a high fever all the year round, deliriously mumbling of far places regardless of season. More than any other group, they arrange life for us in neat grooves. We have just this moment been skirting through a prospectus of winter and spring trips presented to us by a dutiful and precise agent. The trips are divided into “short” and “long.” “There’s Mexico,” says the booklet. “Ten days, $180.” And “there’s the Mediterranean, 29 days, $485.” Our fancy flits along, jog-step, taking in the sights. And then, as a sudden afterthought, the joyous booklet writer really hits his stride. “There’s the WORLD,” he cries. “97 days, $833-50”
    We had never had the planet laid so neatly at our feet, as though dropped there by a spaniel.
    NO VERBS
    7/29/39
    ON A FETID AFTERNOON LIKE THIS , when all the nobility goes out of a writer and parts of speech lie scattered around the room among cigarette butts and crushed paper cups, we envy the gossip columnists their lot. We particularly envy them their ability to earn a living by talking in participles. You have, of course, observed this phenomenon of the American press—the sentence with no verb. From a literary standpoint it is the prose invention of the century, for it enables the writer to sound as though he were saying something without actually saying it. Thus: “Mrs. Oral Ferrous on the Starlight Roof, chatting with Count de Guiche.” Or, “Captain Montmorency Squall, sitting with Mrs. Vincent Trip in a black lace gown and two ropes of pearls.” The absence, in these participial items, of any predicate is extremely exciting to the reader, who figures anything might happen. Outside of the columnists, the only person we know who talks entirely in participles is a French-Italian lady who has done our laundry beautifully for years without the use of a single verb. Her sentences don’t even have subjects—just participles and adverbs.
    It is perhaps only fair to columnists and to the subjects of their stillborn sentences to confess that, a year or more ago, when we discovered that unfinished sentences were having a bad effect on our nerves, we took to completing all sentences under our breath—using a standard predicate. We found that the