What is the author's tone in Letters of E. B. White by E. B. White?

The tone of most of the letters is casual, conversational and friendly. In letters to friends, family and loved ones, White's tone is very warm and affectionate. Whatever difficulties he may have had in expressing his feelings in person are not in evidence in his letters. Many of them are beautifully descriptive of the environment—especially those written from Maine—and demonstrate a keen awareness of others' feelings as well as his abiding love of nature and animals. In just a few, his tone is brusque and assertive, as when he writes to the editor of The Washington Post to correct the impression that he is somehow behind Thurber's fame as a humorist. "I did not 'help him become an international celebrity'—he became one because he had what it takes," White asserts. Some of his letters and memos are frankly humorous, as in the case of the (illustrated) memo White sends to New Yorker publisher Harold Ross explaining why New York taxicabs are so uncomfortable and lamenting the passage of cabs with adequate passenger door space. In letters to his wife Katharine, working in New York, White's tone seems one of gentle longing and constant reminder of how important she is to him.