Uh, Thanks for the Compliment

Reading Ben Yagoda's About the Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, I'm having a hard time reconciling the squeamish side of founder/editor Harold Ross (Yagoda reprints a letter in which Ross insists on maintaining the "satin tissue" euphemism: "Nevertheless, the word toilet paper in print inevitably presents a picture to me that is distasteful and, frequently, sickening.") with the following, presented last in a batch of gushing letters to writers, from Ross to his 'old friend' Frank Sullivan:

Your piece was on my desk (as we say here) when I arrived at my office today. I was right on the verge of my morning movement and I took the play with me to read. I can't say which I enjoyed more, the play or the passage of my bowels. Looking back on it now, I guess it was the combination. The piece sort of relaxed me. I think your stuff has this effect, Frank, and that if you would do one a week for us awhile a lot of people in this town who are taking pills, now, would stop taking them.