在每个秋季学期开始时，无数学生都被要求写一篇作文，题目一定是有史以来最没有灵感的作文题目：“我是如何度过暑假的。”然而，一个好作家能在这样一个看似枯燥的题目上做些什么是值得注意的——尽管完成作业可能需要比平时更长的时间。

在这种情况下，好作家是E.B.怀特，花了四分之一个多世纪才完成的文章是《再到湖边》

初稿：关于贝尔格莱德湖的小册子（1914年）

早在1914年，就在他15岁生日前不久，艾尔温·怀特以不同寻常的热情回应了这个熟悉的话题。这是一个男孩非常熟悉的话题，也是他非常喜欢的经历。过去十年中，每年八月，怀特的父亲都会带全家去缅因州贝尔格莱德湖的同一个营地。在一本自行设计的小册子中，包括草图和照片，young Elwyn清晰而传统地开始了他的报告

This wonderful lake is five miles wide, and about ten miles long, with many coves, points and islands. It is one of a series of lakes, which are connected with each other by little streams. One of these streams is several miles long and deep enough so that it affords an opportunity for a fine all-day canoe trip. . . . The lake is large enough to make the conditions ideal for all kinds of small boats. The bathing also is a feature, for the days grow very warm at noon time and make a good swim feel fine. (reprinted in Scott Elledge, ​E.B. White: A Biography. Norton, 1984)

第二稿：致斯坦利·哈特·怀特的信（1936年）

1936年夏天，当时《纽约客》杂志的著名作家E.B.怀特回访了这个童年度假胜地。在那里，他给他的兄弟斯坦利写了一封长信，生动地描述了湖的景色、声音和气味。以下是一些摘录：

The lake hangs clear and still at dawn, and the sound of a cowbell comes softly from a faraway woodlot. In the shallows along shore the pebbles and driftwood show clear and smooth on bottom, and black water bugs dart, spreading a wake and a shadow. A fish rises quickly in the lily pads with a little plop, and a broad ring widens to eternity. The water in the basin is icy before breakfast, and cuts sharply into your nose and ears and makes your face blue as you wash. But the boards of the dock are already hot in the sun, and there are doughnuts for breakfast and the smell is there, the faintly rancid smell that hangs around Maine kitchens. Sometimes there is little wind all day, and on still hot afternoons the sound of a motorboat comes drifting five miles from the other shore, and the droning lake becomes articulate, like a hot field. A crow calls, fearfully and far. If a night breeze springs up, you are aware of a restless noise along the shore, and for a few minutes before you fall asleep you hear the intimate talk between fresh-water waves and rocks that lie below bending birches. The insides of your camp are hung with pictures cut from magazines, and the camp smells of lumber and damp. Things don't change much. . . . (Letters of E.B. White, edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth. Harper & Row, 1976)

最终修订版：“再次来到湖边”（1941年）

怀特于1936年独自返程，部分是为了纪念他的父母，他们两人最近都去世了。1941年，当他再次前往贝尔格莱德湖时，他带着儿子乔尔。怀特在上个世纪最著名、最频繁的文集《再到湖边》中记录了这一经历：

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. The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs broken in the same places, and under the floor-boards the same fresh-water leavings and debris--the dead hellgrammite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook, the dried blood from yesterday's catch. We stared silently at the tips of our rods, at the dragonflies that came and went. I lowered the tip of mine into the water, pensively dislodging the fly, which darted two feet away, poised, darted two feet back, and came to rest again a little farther up the rod. There had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one--the one that was part of memory. . . . (Harper's, 1941; reprinted in One Man's Meat. Tilbury House Publishers, 1997)

怀特1936年信中的某些细节在他1941年的文章中重现：潮湿的苔藓、桦树啤酒、木材的气味、舷外发动机的声音。在他的信中，怀特坚持认为“事情没有多大变化”，在他的文章中，我们听到了这样一句话：“没有几年”。但在这两篇文章中，我们都感觉到作者在努力维持一种幻觉。一个笑话可能是“不死的”，湖水可能是“不褪色的”，夏天可能似乎是“永无止境的”。然而，正如怀特在“再次来到湖边”的结尾形象中所明确指出的，只有生活模式是“不可磨灭的”：

When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.

花将近30年的时间写一篇文章是个例外。但是，你必须承认，“再次来到湖边”也是如此

附言（1981）

根据《E.B.怀特：传记》中的斯科特·艾尔奇（Scott Elledge）的说法，1981年7月11日，怀特为了庆祝他的八十一岁生日，将一艘独木舟绑在汽车顶部，驶向“七十年前，他从父亲那里收到了一艘绿色老城独木舟，这是他十一岁生日的礼物。”