Writings from the New Yorker 1925-1976 by E. B. White Page B

“discussions” are farcical, and are quite expensive, too. The United States has proposed that the curtain be opened just enough to allow inspectors to walk through and look about for concealed weapons. That begs the issue. The free nations of the U. N. should ask Russia to show cause why her curtain should not be abandoned—not as an approach to disarmament but as a precondition of further debate on anything at all. The curtain is the one topic that must acutely embarrass the Soviet lords, it is such a telltale device: evidence of their fear, symbol of their immaturity, and sure sign of their contempt for people. The curtain is their private snowstorm, behind which they hope to withdraw and play with their construction set.
    PIRANHAS
    11/29/52
    THERE’S A TROPICAL-FISH STORE in this vicinity, and one of the tanks contains a solitary piranha—a little fish that looks something like a sunfish. The price tag says $25—quite a sum for a three-inch pet that sulks in a watery corner, slowly waving its pectorals. However, the piranha has this to be said for it: it is a man-eater. Fierce, remorseless, and with a taste for the flesh of warm-blooded animals, it will attack furiously. We pass the fish store almost every day on our way to work, the blood flowing warm in our veins, the prospect of another day at a typewriter filling our head with suicidal fancies, and we always stop for a moment in front of the piranha. We like having a murderous fish in the neighborhood; it is reassuring to know that all we have to do is dive into a nearby tank to be stripped flesh from bone in a matter of minutes.
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    A glance at the calendar, a glimpse of Gristede’s, * set us exploring our private reserves of gratitude and adoration. To forget the world’s abundance, even briefly and in a moment of spiritual penury, is to lose one’s toehold on the ladder. The sun rises, the leaves fall, the park grows cold, the springs flow, the birds rip by on knowing wings, the pumpkin accedes to the throne, and men prepare. For what do they prepare? Unlike birds, trees, sun, they prepare for war—or else they prepare for they know not what, which is almost the same thing. They prepare, perhaps, for cold. Fearing the worst, they prepare for the worst. But there is still room for thanks—not for the pass we’ve reached but for the setting against which we’ve reached it, a backdrop beyond compare, a scene of wild and illimitable promise, a revolutionary cyclorama of cleverly concealed progress, with good men holding firm. Wanted: a third act. Until we know that the playwright has collapsed or gone in with the piranha, until we know that all’s behind, we shall innocently assume that all is ahead, and render thanks, at the customary time and in the customary way, for the privilege of a walk-on part in the show.
    CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
    12/19/53
    OUT IN SUMMIT, NEW JERSEY , the students of the Junior High recite a school pledge at their assemblies, and the pledge used to start, “I, a student of Summit Junior High School and a future citizen of the world, promise to obey and uphold the laws of my country and school.” The Veterans of Foreign Wars got wind of this dangerous condition and persuaded the school authorities to strike out the offensive phrase “citizen of the world.” The school children must, therefore, have been surprised the other day when the same phrase popped up in President Eisenhower’s address to the United Nations. “The atomic age,” he said, “has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development.” Clear case of the President of the United States going over the heads of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. We don’t know what the next step of the school authorities should be—give up assemblies, perhaps, as being a breeding ground for difference