“The way to know the shape of things in advance is to listen to seers and mystics instead of to economists and tacticians. The world had ample warning of every event which it has greeted with such gasps of surprise in the past twelve months. Part of the preparation for the perfect world society will be the recognition of seers. It will be required for the President of the United States that he read one poem and one parable or fable a day, in addition to the editorials in the Times.

—E. B. White, “Compost,” in One Man’s Meat (New York: Harper & Row, 1944), 164. [White wrote this essay in June 1940.]