E. B. White does do it well. He does it extremely well. And here is a new book of his called "The Points of My Compass," a collection of eighteen essays, reports and reminiscences (all but one of which have previously appeared in The New Yorker as a "Letter from the East" or some other compass point) in which he is as good as ever. It is a first-rate collection of pieces: wise and funny and perceptive and altogether interesting, and written with that special magic which only people trying to write truthfully now and then attain.