THE POINTS OF MY COMPASS

Some dozen and a half articles of previous years (1954 on) are collected here from their The New Yorker appearances, and 1962 postscripts and perorations have been added. White's distilled prose is an ever present illumination to a variety of things -- the U. N., railroads, language (the piece on Will Strunk which revived this Cornell professor's textbook), television, pigeons, living in Maine -- and New York City, automobiles, hurricanes, Thorsan (from The Yale Review), dogs, moving national and international affairs. There's a youthful trip, recalled from 1923, to Alaska; there's a report from Florida; recall of a dachshund is involved with presidential and prayerful matters: raccoons lead to kitchens; sootfall and fallout are combined in ""Man's gradual, creeping contamination of the planet""; and ""These are times of daily horror and daily fear"" in which a man who attaches ""the very highest importance to words"" speaks out -- not only with thoughtfulness but with honesty and distinction. To be read for content -- and, more, for manner, this is an adventure into English as it can be written.