Day 95 - Picked up E. B. White

Author E. B. White wrote the familiar classics Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. But he was also a prolific contributor to The New Yorker magazine for almost six decades. His humorous, lively essays were brought together in Writing From The New Yorker 1925-1976 and are thoroughly enjoyable. Here's one: Travel Brochure from Jan 26, 1935

The adventure-mad travel-brochure people run a high fever all 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.