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In this poetic essay Once More to the Lake, E.B. White invites us to go through a dual journey to his holy spot, the lake in Maine, by employing a special writing skill—the shuttle of time. The lake of the past and present is like a needle and thread, which sews the embroidery of the scenery.
“That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express; no, nor the first sight of life.” Francis Bacon once remarked when he talked about the beauty of nature. To this point, E.B. White seems share the same idea with Sir Bacon. Keeping pace with the author’s revisit, we barely draw a clear dividing line between the unreal and the real—the lake in his memory and the status quo of the lake. Everything around seems to be as peaceful as before—the unsubstantial water, the unshatterable wood and the neat cottages; everything appears to be fade-proof—the cultish bather, the dried blood of fish as well as the outhouse with a can of lime for sprinkling. Each little detail is whispering the same enchanted sentence—there is no passage of time. We, as the author deliberately misled, are fascinated by these images of good old days.
If this essay is merely about the scene of the lake and those good old days, Mr. White won’t be regarded as one of the most prominent American essayist. Behind the pretty-the-same-at-first-sight images, the author elaborately leaves a needle of changes to perfect this piece of art work. Time changes and men change with it. The middle track has disappeared, the pretty waitresses have washed their hair and the noisy motor boats can be seen everywhere on the lake. All the minor differences remind us of the flow of time.
Like this tranquil body of lake, the author’s thinking and sensation is also flowing quietly. It seems that every little thing is lying in the long shadow of the past; however, when recalling the past, he is disturbed by the reality from time to time. Little by little, the line is being blurred. The unreal and the real become one, and then the full picture of natural beauty comes out—a dual journey to this lake.
Besides the dual journey to appreciate the beauty of the past and present lake, the author himself experienced a dual visit to this lake in dual identities. William Wordswith, a distinguished English poet of the 19th century, once said that the child is father of the man. This idea might sound a little bit ridiculous at the first sight but infinitely true—a man’s virtue and personality can be traced back to his childhood and the memory of childhood is essential to a man. The lake in Maine used to be a lovely cove for the author, relatively remote and primitive. When he became a father, he brought his son to revisit this holy spot. Running through the narration of this journey, we are led by the author’s transposition of angles and identities. Sometimes we are led by the son to enjoy the good time of the vacation; next minute, the little boy becomes a father, and we are led by him to recall placidity and notice that we are getting older and older.
The interaction and relationship between human and nature have been brought into spotlight here. In front of nature, human beings are performing their own drama—the cycle of birth, childhood, maturity, and death. Nature is our audience, perhaps the only audience. The Lake District is not only a vacation resort but also a society. Staying in this little community, the author is struggling in the illusion caused by his awareness of the fact that he is indeed not a boy any more and he is moving towards death. It is indeed a journey towards personal awareness of the life cycle of a human being; this cycle is a universally acknowledged truth and everyone is subject to it.
It might be the most complicated journey we have ever experienced—dual journey of the past and present, to dually visit as a son and father. The lake is a mirror, peaceful and seemingly unchanged, reflecting the passage of time and all changes of things. Implementing the shuttle of time, the author presents both the lake in his memory as well as the lake of present; with the flow of these poem-like words, we appreciate the essence of the beauty. However, this essay is not merely a pastoral or a nostalgic anthem on the beauty of nature. In this sense, the author takes a thought-provoking method or angle—the transposition of identity—to illustrate the interaction and relationship between man and nature. Through the individual perceptive to the natural cycle, a universal truth has been revealed:
Tide is high, and Tide is low. The lake stays the same, but people don’t.
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