Once More to the Lake

“On the journey over to the lake I began to wonder what it would be like. I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot—the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps.” 

Located at the beginning of the second paragraph, this quote highlights White’s preoccupation with the passage of time as it concerns the lake. Here, change is expressly defined as negative as he fears that the lake, and his memories thereof, will somehow be spoiled by the passage of time. Furthermore, the reference to the lake as a “holy spot” marks the first instance of a recurrent motif of religious terminology to describe the camp.

“I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father.” 

White’s feeling that he is literally inhabiting his childhood is one of the essay’s most striking propositions. His experience, as described here, borders on magical and stands out in contrast to the rest of the essay. By describing this strange feeling in such a striking manner, White underscores its thematic importance, which is to provide an example of time passing even as the underlying dynamic—in this case the relationship between father and son—remains the same.

“We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp moss covering the worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly alight on the tip of my rod as it hovered a few inches from the surface of the water. It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years.”

Here, White describes the precise moment he feels most strongly that he is reliving his past. This moment fully expresses the fullness of his conviction that there is an undeniable, underlying sameness that he is able to experience by returning to