“Come, come, it’s best believing, if we can,” says the jovial Sylvester Blougram, over his wine. “Why not,” he asks, “ ‘the Way, the Truth, the Life’?” Why not, indeed? It is all right with me, I say over my own wine. But what is all this fear of, and opposition to, Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep? “Well, folks,” the cheery guard may say, as the train rushes silently into a warm, dark tunnel and stops, “here we are at good old Oblivion! Everybody out!” Come, come, what is the matter with that? I ask—over my scotch and soda.
I Believe, I Believe: The Personal
Philosophies of Certain Eminent
Men and Women of Our Time, 1939
I Break Everything I Touch
I AM interested in forming a little club of miserable men. No man can belong to it who can fix anything or make anything go. No man can belong to it who is handy around the house—or the garage, or anywhere else.
I was born with an aversion to tools. When I was in the eighth grade I had to go to manual training class every Thursday and I was still planing away at a bread-board when the other boys were putting the finishing touches on kitchen cabinets, davenports, and pianos. The bread-board was as far as I ever got and when I finally had it done the instructor, a temperamental and highly strung man named Buckley, who really loved carpentry and cabinet-making, picked it up and looked at it and said, “Thurber, I weep for you.” I wept for me, too. I was covered with cuts and bruises from gouges, planes, bits-and-braces, saws, and hatchets. None of the other boys had a mark on them.
The only thing I can really do is change the ribbon on a typewriter, but it took me 22 years to learn that and every now and then I have to call in a friend or neighbor to help unravel me. When I was younger, I once changed a fuse in the fuse box, but I am too old and too smart to try that again. They tell me that electricity has been harnessed, and I say yes and so was King Kong. I don’t even like to monkey with the thermostat that regulates the oil furnace. Every time I put the thing down to 55 before going up to bed, I expect to be blown out through the roof.
I come by my ineptitude with contraptions of any kind quite naturally. My grandmother on my mother’s side was afraid of doorbells; she always took the receiver off the telephone hook during a thunder storm; she believed that if you unscrewed an electric light bulb, electricity would drip invisibly all over the house and if you then struck a match, you would be blown to hell. My mother was confident that the Victrola we bought in 1913 would explode if you wound it too tight, and she was forever warning me not to drive the family Reo without gasoline, because she had heard it was bad for it if you did.
About the only thing I really know about an automobile is that you can’t run it without gasoline. The Lord knows that enough of my men friends have explained the principles of the gas engine to me, but I am always just where I was when they started—and so is the gas engine. For all I know the distributor regulates the pressure on the manifold. I can run a car and I can stop one; I can also turn right and left and back up; but I don’t know exactly what is happening. The thing has never become any more clear to me than the third law of thermodynamics—or the first one as far as that goes.
I have, of course, been in any number of embarrassing situations with automobiles, from my grandfather’s old Lozier to my 1935 Ford. In England (I drove 15,000 miles in Europe and lived to tell it) my battery went dead near one of the cathedral towns, and I phoned a garage. A young mechanic in a truck appeared after a while and said he would pull me and I could get my engine started that way. I had been pulled and pushed in the old Reo days and I knew that you could start the engine that way. I knew that you pushed the clutch in (or is it out?) and then let it out (or in) suddenly. So the garage man attached a rope to the back of his truck and to the front of my car and away we went—over the hills and through the dales of England.
Every quarter mile or so he would stop and come back to see what was the matter. He lifted the hood, he got under the car, but there was nothing doing.
At the end of five or six miles he got out and said, “What gear you got her in?” He had me there. I didn’t have her in any gear. I had her in neutral. He just stared at me, not in anger or resentment, not with an injured look, but as Cortez must have stared when he stumbled on the Pacific. I know now that you can’t make her turn over if you’ve got her in neutral, but I don’t know why. You can make her turn over with the starter when you’ve got her in neutral. The hell with it.
My worst embarrassment came one day in Connecticut when my engine began to heat up until the red fluid in the gauge was almost up to the top. I stopped at a garage and pointed this out to a mechanic. I got out of the car and stood looking in at the dashboard, thus seeing it from an unfamiliar angle.
Suddenly I saw what I thought was the matter. A needle on one of the dials pointed to 152. “For God’s sake!” I said to the mechanic, “that shouldn’t be registering so high, should it?” (I always swear around mechanics to make them think I have an easy, profane knowledge of motors.) The garage man gave me a long, puzzled look—the old Cortez look. “That’s your radio dial, brother,” he said.
Sure it was. I just hadn’t recognized it. Half the time I look at the oil-pressure gauge instead of the speedometer and I think I am doing only 17 miles an hour.
One of the presents I got for Christmas was a handsome new-fangled soda syphon complete with a set of directions. I put the thing away until just the other day, and then I got the directions out and looked at them, the way ladies look at the snakes in a zoo.
The first three directions were simple enough but the fourth began to make me suspicious. It reads like this: “Place a Super-Charger in the charge holder with small end pointing out (see Figure C). Then screw back cap of charge holder. Do not use force.” They don’t know that the first thing I use is force—I use it on linked-nail puzzles and olive bottles and everything else. An engineer or a mechanic or my brother-in-law or the next door neighbor would go about a thing like this simply and gently, but what I do is get panic-stricken, the way you would if somebody grabbed you in a dark room, and the first thing you know I have the contraption on the floor with my knee on its chest. Pretty soon something makes a sharp snapping noise and the device has to be taken to the attic to join all the other contrivances whose bones I have broken in a series of unequal struggles. Psychologists would explain this by saying that I don’t really want the things around so I break them while pretending to be trying to make them work. Psychologists are often right.
But to get back to the syphon. Rule Six says: “To puncture Super-Charger and to charge the syphon push down charging button (marked A in Figure D) with heel of hand (see Figure E); or give button a tap with palm of hand. Some people find it easier to push charging button against edge of kitchen sink or table.” I haven’t got up enough courage yet to experiment with this syphon, for while I am sure it would work fine for nine men out of ten, I have a feeling it would fight to a draw with me. Next year the makers might even have to add a line or two to Rule Six: “Mr. Thurber of Woodbury, Connecticut, finds it easier to grasp the syphon with both hands and whang it against the kitchen stove. See Group F: the cut and bleeding figure is Thurber.”
When I was 12 years old, an uncle gave me a little box Brownie, the simplest camera in the world. A folder of directions came with it, and I warily approached the section where it explained how to put in a film. “First,” it said, “spring out the spool pins.” I knew right there the thing had me. I knew that far from being able to spring out the spool pins, I wouldn’t even be able to find them. I gave the camera to the first little boy I met on the street, a youngster of eight, who I was sure could spring out the spool pins with his eyes blindfolded and mittens on his hands.
This is not the world for me, this highly mechanized world. I can only hope that in Heaven there is nothing more complicated than a harp and that they will have winged mechanics to fix mine when I get it down and break its back.
&nb
sp; The Man, 1941
CHRONOLOGY
NOTE ON THE TEXTS
NOTES
Chronology
1894
Born James Grover Thurber on December 8, 1894, in Columbus, Ohio, second son of Mary Agnes (“Mame”) Fisher and Charles Thurber. (Maternal grandfather William M. Fisher founded what became a prosperous wholesale produce business in 1870; he was noted in Columbus for his eccentric and sometimes pugnacious behavior. Mother, born 1866, also became known locally for her extravagant storytelling, elaborate practical jokes, and deep interest in astrology, numerology, and various systems of self-help. Father was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1867; he came to Columbus in 1878 to stay with his aunt Margery Albright. Parents met in elementary school, then corresponded after father returned to Indianapolis to support his ailing mother; after a three-year engagement, they married in July 1892. Their first child, William, was born in October 1893.) Father works as clerk for Ohio secretary of state.
1895
Father begins working as clerk for Ohio governor Asa S. Bushnell in December.
1896
Brother Robert born in December.
1900
Thurber begins attending Ohio Avenue Elementary School in September.
1902
Family moves to Washington, D.C., in April after former Ohio congressman David K. Watson hires father as stenographer; they later rent summer house in Falls Church, Virginia. In August, Thurber is accidentally shot in his left eye with a toy arrow by William while playing. Mother takes Thurber to general practitioner who dresses the injured eye; several days later eye is removed by specialist Dr. Swann Burnett, but uninjured right eye is gradually damaged by “sympathetic infection.” (In later years Thurber becomes convinced that early removal of the injured eye would have averted damage to the other eye.) Thurber stays at home during the next school year.
1903
Family returns to Columbus in June, where father works as freelance stenographer (his jobs are sporadic and short-term, and he is frequently unemployed). Thurber starts third grade at Sullivant School, which he will attend for the next four years; schoolmates include future humorist Donald Ogden Stewart.
1905
Father becomes seriously ill, and is unable to work; family moves into home of Thurber’s maternal grandparents for several months. (Thurber, who is often the object of his grandfather’s fierce temper, frequently stays with great-aunt Margery Albright over the next five years.)
1907–9
Transfers to Douglas School for seventh and eighth grades. Enters Columbus East High School in the fall of 1909.
1913–14
Publishes first story, western adventure “The Third Bullet,” in high school magazine in May 1913. Enrolls at Ohio State University in September 1913. Vision problems prevent his participating in athletics; he suffers ostracism, and no fraternity pledges him. Attendance at classes, military drill, and physical education is erratic. Registers as sophomore for 1914–15 school year, but drops out for the entire year.
1915–17
Registers again as a sophomore for 1915–16, then drops out when denied admission in the second semester because of failure to attend gym classes and military drill; is reinstated on appeal in the fall of 1916. Forms close friendship with fellow student and professional actor Elliott Nugent (son of well-known playwright and actor J. C. Nugent); with Nugent’s help is accepted into Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and becomes active in student newspaper The Lantern, humor magazine The Sun-Dial, and drama club The Strollers. Deeply influenced by literature classes taught by Joseph Taylor, who introduces Thurber to work of Henry James.
1918
Becomes editor of The Sun-Dial. Eager to help war effort, drops out of Ohio State in the spring and travels to Washington to train for three months as State Department code and cipher clerk. Arrives in Paris shortly after end of World War I in November.
1919
Works at American Embassy and lives in a pension. Looks up places mentioned in Henry James’s novels and visits Normandy. Loses his virginity in the fall, under circumstances that he never clarifies; writes to a friend that he has “had a very bad time of it with nerves in Paris.”
1920
Returns to Columbus in February. Rents typewriter and tries to write; spends much of his time courting childhood schoolmate Eva Prout. Hired in August as cub reporter for Columbus Dispatch. Active in The Scarlet Mask, campus theatrical group that stages yearly musicals; collaborates as writer and performer on musical Oh My, Omar!
1921
Forms friendship with newspaperman John McNulty, a New Yorker then working for the Ohio State Journal. Meets Althea Adams (b. 1901), an Ohio State undergraduate involved in Strollers drama club. Travels to New York in October to review plays for the Dispatch; attends wedding of Elliott Nugent, who is currently appearing on Broadway. Writes script of Scarlet Mask production Many Moons.
1922
Marries Althea Adams in May; they honeymoon in Washington, D.C., and New York. Collaborates on writing of Scarlet Mask production A Twin Fix.
1923
Contributes Sunday humor column “Credos and Curios” to the Dispatch. Travels in April to New York and Connecticut, going to the theater and visiting with Nugent. Collaborates on Scarlet Mask production The Cat and the Riddle.
1924
With Althea’s encouragement, quits the Dispatch and spends the summer working on script for a musical and writing essays and stories in a cabin in the Adirondacks; only one piece is accepted for publication. Returns to Columbus, where the Dispatch, following standing policy, refuses to rehire him. Works as press agent for various local entertainment businesses. Writes and directs Scarlet Mask production Tell Me Not.
1925
Sails with Althea to France in May; tries unsuccessfully to write a novel at a farmhouse in Normandy before settling in Paris. Works at night copy desk of Paris edition of Chicago Tribune; forms friendship with fellow reporters William L. Shirer and Elliot Paul. Meets F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Thurber and Althea spend winter in Nice working on Riviera edition of Tribune. Freelances for other publications including the New York World, Kansas City Star, and Harper’s.
1926
Marriage is troubled; Thurber returns to New York alone in June and settles in Greenwich Village. Submits a batch of articles to The New Yorker; all are rejected. After Althea returns from France, she and Thurber spend the summer in Gloversville, New York, then settle in an apartment on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. He considers returning to Columbus until his brief humor item is printed in Franklin P. Adams’ syndicated column “The Conning Tower.” Hired as reporter by New York Evening Post.
1927
Sells his first short piece to The New Yorker, “An American Romance.” Meets New Yorker staff writer E. B. White, who becomes close friend and mentor, and is introduced by White to magazine’s founding editor, Harold W. Ross, who hires him immediately to handle administration. (Magazine’s regular contributors include Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, and Dorothy Parker; staff includes Katharine Angell, who later marries White, and Ralph Ingersoll, and will later be joined by Wolcott Gibbs, Brendan Gill, Gus Lobrano, Robert Coates, and William Maxwell, among others.) Demonstrates no aptitude at administration and after several months begins working as copy editor and rewrite man, while continuing to contribute “casuals” to the magazine. Shares an office with White for the next three years, and with him writes much of the “Talk of the Town” section of the magazine for the next eight years. During summer meets Ann Honeycutt, with whom he forms intense friendship.
1928
Writes first in series of stories about the Monroes, couple whose married life is modeled on the marriage of Thurber and Althea.
1929
Separates from Althea; he lives at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan while she stays at rented house in Silvermine, Connecticut, where he sometimes visits her. Collaborates with E. B. White on Is Sex Necessary?, parody of cont
emporary sex manuals, with Thurber contributing four chapters, preface, and glossary; at White’s insistence, the book is illustrated with Thurber’s drawings. The book is published in November by Harper & Bros.
1930
Meets magazine editor Helen Muriel Wismer at New Year’s Day party at Ann Honeycutt’s apartment. In the fall Althea and Thurber share an apartment in New York City.
1931
The Owl in the Attic, collection of pieces originally published in The New Yorker, published by Harper in February. Buys farm in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in August. Daughter Rosemary is born on October 7.
1932
Publishes first of 307 captioned cartoons in The New Yorker in January. Visits Bermuda, where he forms enduring friendship with young English couple Ronnie and Jane Williams. The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, a collection of cartoons and other drawings, published by Harper in November.
1933
Lives at the Algonquin, occasionally visiting Althea and Rosemary in Sandy Hook. My Life and Hard Times published by Harper in November.
1934
Althea files for legal separation in March. Thurber substitutes for Alexander Woollcott on his radio show for several weeks in April. One-man show of Thurber’s drawings opens at Valentine Gallery in New York City in December.
1935
Suffering effects of anxiety and heavy drinking, rests at a sanitarium in Ellenville, New York, in March. Divorced from Althea in May. Marries Helen Wismer June 25; they honeymoon on Martha’s Vineyard and afterwards move into an apartment on Fifth Avenue. Invites Thomas Wolfe up for drinks but is insulted by Wolfe’s lack of regard for his writing (later notes of Wolfe: “For an hour he was very amusing and then he became a drunken writer and exactly as disagreeable as all drunken writers”). The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze published by Harper in November. Visits Columbus with Helen at Thanksgiving. Gives up staff position at The New Yorker to work on freelance basis.
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