127. PATIENCE & FORTITUDE

September 6, 2026

Greeted by Patience and Fortitude at The New York Public Library last year. What I was ultimately seeking.

(The marble lions, Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, were renamed during the Great Depression by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.)

Thought this letter was the aha moment.

E.B. WHITE (1899–1985)
Letter to Vladimir Nabokov,
October 8, 1950

Dear Vladimir:

There is a large grey spider that commonly inhabits out-buildings and sheds, and I turn to you on the chance that you know her and can enlighten me as to certain of her more intimate habits and functions—this because she figures in a book I am writing and I find myself, at this point, stuck.

…

What I particularly wish to know is her name and her span of life.

(Source: The New York Public Library; A Century of The New Yorker exhibition viewable online.)

---

Related: A WOVEN STORY, INTUITION, YARN, OZMA, THE LION, ABRACADABRA, MORE YARN, BOOK FOUND, HEART OF THE LION, BACK ON TRACK, DIRECTION, THE DIARIES, IMPROVISATION, CITY CENTER, LA GUARDIA, AHA!