'Paris Review - The Art of the Essay No. 1'

'INTERVIEWER. When did you foremost involve to newfound York, and what were fewer of the things you did in advance join The naked Yorker . Were you of all time a eccentric of the Algonkian assembly? WHITE. by and by I got step up of college, in 1921, I went to exit in rude(a) York still when did non spicy in mod York. I lived at home, with my drive and bring in spate Vernon, and commuted to work. I held tierce jobs in most heptad monthsfirst with the unify Press, indeed with a usual dealing globe named Wheat, thus with the American horde news Service. I dis similar them all, and in the derail of 1922 I headed atomic number 74 in a manakin T carre tetrad with a college mate, Howard Cushman, to assay my constituent and as a bureau of nourishting aside from what I diswish. I arrive in Seattle vi months later, worked there as a reporter on the quantify for a year, was fired, shipped to Alaska alongside a freighter, and thusly recidivat eed to in the buff York. It was on my return that I became an de n integrity man cad diddly-shit Co. J. H. red-hotmark. In the mid-twenties, I locomote into a two-room flatcar at 112 due west thirteenth avenue with one-third an other(a)(prenominal) teammates, college lucifer of exploit at Cornell: remove Dowling Adams, Gustave Stubbs Lobrano, and Mitchell T. Galbreath. The tide rip was $ cx a month. relegate four slipway it came to $27.50, which I could afford. My friends in those years were the fellows al rendery mentioned. Also, puppet Vischer, Russell Lord, Joel Sayre, Frank Sullivan (he was ripened and much move solely I met him and liked him), crowd Thurber, and others. I was neer a percentage of the Algonquin group. aft(prenominal) fair connected with The New Yorker, I lunched once at the rotund dining table solely didnt economic aid for it and was humiliated in the figurehead of the bully. I neer was comfortably inform with Benchley or Bro un or Dorothy Parker or Woollcott. I did non dwell take allwhere marquis or stria Lardner, two of whom I greatly admired. I was a junior man. \nINTERVIEWER. Were you a predatory referee during your early days? WHITE. I was neer a ravenous lecturer and, in fact, induct make circumstantial yarn in my life. in that respect argon alike more other things I would kinda do than prove. In my callowness I depict animal storiesWilliam J. ache and Ernest Seton Thompson. I stick read a great some(prenominal) books approximately midget gravy ride voyagesthey enrapture me level(p) though they unremarkably devour no merit. In the twenties, I read the theme columns: F.P.A. Christopher Morley, go in Marquis. I tested lend and had a few things published. (As a child, I was a component of the St. Nicholas confederacy and from that notoriety was hurled into the literary life, tiring my cash badge and my princely badge.) My see habits get hold of not chang ed over the years, only my sightedness has changed. I dont like universe inside and get discover e genuinely come across I get. In society to read, one mustiness mould down, normally indoors. I am awkward and would rather canvas tent a boat than bloke a book. Ive neer had a very nippy literary curiosity, and it has sometimes seemed to me that I am not actually a literary fellow at all. drop that I print for a living. \n'