In this short story about a man who visits a psychiatrist to rid himself of “bizarre thoughts,” E.B. White, the master of sensibility, simply had to conjure the longing gaze at alcohol, and the rest of the story goes about shredding itself around the mystifying void of the glass, looking for that deep, formless fulfillment:
“Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted … He was satisfied to remember that it was deep, formless, enduring, and impossible of fulfillment, and that it made men sick, and that when you sauntered along Third Avenue and looked through the doorways into the dim saloons, you could sometimes pick out from the unregenerate ranks the ones who had not forgotten, gazing steadily into the bottoms of the glasses on the long chance that they could get another little peek at it.”