Letters of Note, an online collection of notable letters throughout history, includes one from E.B. White, author of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, and co-author of The Elements of Style, about the lure and love of libraries. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Lure and Love of Libraries”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. In 1971, a new public library opened in Troy, Michigan.
To celebrate, the children’s librarian, a woman named Marguerite Hart, wrote to famous authors and artists and musicians and others asking them to write to the children of Troy, both to congratulate them on this milestone and to extol the benefits of their new library. One of the responses she received was from E.B. White, the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, and I wanted to share that with you.
Dear children of Troy, your librarian has asked me to write telling you what a library can mean to you. A library is many things. It’s a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It’s a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly, it is a place where books live and where you can get in touch with other people and other thoughts through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books, the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go.
Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you’re reading a book, you and the author are alone together, just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered.
Books are good company in sad times and happy times, for books are people. People who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
Signed, E.B. White.
How about that, Grant?
That’s lovely.
And just for background for anyone who doesn’t remember, E.B. White was one of the names on Strunk and White’s writing guide, right?
Oh, that’s right.
I forgot about that part.
But also the author of… Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little.
I found this and a whole lot of other really cool letters at lettersofnote.com. It’s a collection of letters from throughout history compiled by Sean Usher, who has also published several compilations of this correspondence back and forth between historical figures, some people that you wouldn’t know, some people that you would, but all the letters are really fascinating to read.
At lettersofnote.com. And I love that letter in particular. I’m glad that you chose it. And you know that you’ve seen me give speeches about this when you and I are on the road and talking to our listeners and to communities and groups about how I feel in some way that libraries saved me or even rescued me from what I think would have been a different life, maybe not as a good one, because they gave me exactly the opportunities that he’s talking about.
They, in a poor community, they gave me books. They gave me learning. They gave me knowledge. They gave me other worlds, other perspectives.
And I absolutely think that it’s still true that libraries are now, maybe more than they were when I was a kid, a lifeline for anybody who’s lonely or uneducated or needs help or needs a friend or just needs to get out of their own shoes and get into someone else’s.
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Our email address is words@waywordradio.org.
Thank you.
