Thurber (non Homeric)

[James Thurber to E. B. White]

Dear Andy,

. . . When are you coming to New York? I heard a vague rumor that you had set out to discover the Northwest Passage, but that the trees began to move on you, or something. Remember how [Morris] Markey wrote an intimate account of Baltimore without going there. He got the dope from his friend Logan Clendenning over a few drinks in St. Louis. This was the book in which everybody Markey met, in mines, or factories, or forests, turned out to be Markey himself. He did his best piece, "The Deep South" in a small upstairs front room in Little River, Florida. "There ain't any use wearin' yourself out," he used to say. Who wants to reach Duluth with the smell of Albany still on him?

We are anxious to see you and Katherine, and to hear about Joe and Roger and Evelyn. The new maple blight has not got us yet.

Love and kisses from us both

As always,

Jim

-from The Thurber Letters: the wit, wisdom, and surprising life of James Thurber edited by Harrison Kinney (New York: Simon & Schuster,2003). p. 533.