E.B. White, from 1962, mourning the rape of the earth

[Randy Burgess]

For the past month or two I have been dipping into the collection published in 1977 of "Essays of E.B. White." Before now I hadn't read very much at all of White except his children's books. The essays in this collection are variable, but some are quite funny, others quite lovely, still others a little of both. And some are very sad, especially when he writes - and this was back in the 1950s and 1960s in many cases - of the harm done by our chemicals and atomic weapons and the like to what was beginning to be called "the environment."

Below is an especially sad excerpt - it is the May 1962 postscript White added to a 1956 essay on fallout from atomic bomb tests:

This is a smiling morning; I am writing where I can look out at our garden piece, which has been newly harrowed, ready for planting. The rich brown patch of ground used to bring delight to eye and mind at this fresh season of promise. For me the scene has been spoiled by the maggots that work in the mind. Tomorrow we will have rain, and the rain falling on the garden will carry its cargo of debris from old explosions in distant places. Whether the amount of this freight is great or small, whether it is measurable by the farmer or can only be guessed at, one thing is certain: the character of rain has changed, the joy of watching it soak the waiting earth has been diminished, and the whole meaning and worth of gardens has been brought into question.

[Brent Robison]

Yes... this gives a whole new perspective to the days and days of rain we've just been going through, cargo-carrying rain, poison rain... but the sunshine is no longer safe either. Sigh.