Once More to the Lake is one of the most enduring essays of E.B. White, a notable American writer in 1920s. In this essay, the author went back to the lake in Maine, which gave him the best memory in his childhood and made him feel the flying of time and cruelty of human life cycle by comparing, consciously or not, the memory and reality of nature and human beings at the lake. As E.B. White is well known for his use of the English language, various writing skills are observed in the passage, among which the use of contrast is the most distinguished one and of crucial importance.

In the whole passage, contrast helps to reveal its main idea: The struggle between real scene and unreal impression filled up the author’s whole journey. The memory mixed up with some part of the reality convinced himself that “there has been no years” while the facts of change “break the illusion and set the years moving”. The contrast of feeling, especially being in the reality, then falling into the illusion but soon being pulled out from it again, is all that E.B. White experienced during his visit to the lake.

If we take a close look at this passage we will find that the skill of contrast is so frequently used that almost every paragraph has its sign. Contrasts in detail greatly enrich the content and the meaning of the passage, some of which support its main idea in an indirect way and some share other feelings in the journey. In the following we will zoom in on some of them.

At the first paragraph the author tells us the reason for and his eagerness of going back to the lake. Although he has become a seaman, the moodiness of the sea in the summertime made him wish for the placidity of the lake. The contrast between the sea and the lake rises. The description of the sea is so vivid and the author’s preference is clearly seen: the “restless” tide, the “fearful, cold” of the sea water and the “incessant” wind that “blows across the afternoon and into the evening”. Obviously the author does not quite like the sea very much, which is full of passion and can not stop for a minute. Instead, he finds favor to the peaceful lake in woods: “placidity” is used in this paragraph to show its quiet character. Then the expression “cool and emotionless” in the following paragraph further explains the “placidity”. At last the analogies of “holy spot” and “cathedral” sublimate the physical enjoyment into a mental worship, which indicates that his love to the lake is sacred and irreplaceable.

This is the first time in this essay that the author shows his affection to the lake. He gives up expressing his feeling directly but to use the skill of contrast into the lines of description, which brings a stronger effect on feeling expression than the plain love words do.

When mentioning the road up to the farmhouse to dinner through the teeming dusty field, the author contrasts the three-track road in his childhood memory with the two- track road of the day. The difference between the two is that the middle track, the one with the marks of the hooves and the splotches of dried, flaky manure was missing. As the horse is the major means of transportation in the rural area in the past, the middle track is the symbol of old-fashion rural life with slow pace, primeval and simple. Twenty years later the industrialization changed the country, the horse-drawn carriage has disappeared. But the change in the means of transportation is just the evidences of the change on rural way of life. Towards the change, the author’s attitude is clear: “I missed terribly the middle alternative.” He loves the old rural life pattern. The development of technology is ruining the ideal image of the rural in his heart, which is exactly E.B. White always condemned in his works. The contrast again helps him to express his assertion indirectly but effectively.

In addition, E.B. White expresses his idea on the change of human being’s interrelationship by using the skill of contrast when describing people’s different reactions to his arriving. In the past the arriving had been “so big a business in itself” to the author because he and his father used to be warmly welcomed the moment they reached the lake; however, “arriving was less exciting nowadays” and the shouts and cries of the other campers “were all over in five minutes”, “no fuss no loud wonderful fuss about trunks”. With industrialization, trunks are never eye-catching subjects, which is very natural. What the author actually worried about is that in the modern life, people tend to keep a longer distance from each other. They treat each other less hospital than before. Apparently the author likes the former “fuss” as much as likes the heated and strong interrelationship between each other. The indifferent interrelationship must be the last thing he wants to see.

Like the above-mentioned evidences, some of other contrasts, observation vs. emotion for example, used in this passage function as the back bone of the feature, supporting the central idea of the essay, while others are flesh and blood, enriching its meaning and adding more vitality to it, such as the contrast between the inboard motor in the past and the modern outboard. It is the use of contrast that greatly contributes to the success of Once More to the Lake.

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