While browsing a local used bookstore the other day, I happened across a collection of E.B. White’s writings from The New Yorker (1927-1976). Here’s a gem from May 3, 1930:

When he heard about the National Arts Club prize for a book which would “reveal the soul of America,” one of our dearest friends sat right down and got to work. He had a great plot, and seemed, when we left him, to be much interested in getting it down on paper. When, a day or two later, we saw him again, we were surprised to learn that he had given up the project. It seems that when he read about the prize in the newspaper, he thought it said thirty thousand dollars; later he looked up the clipping and discovered it said three thousand dollars. True to the soul of America, he gave the thing up immediately.

Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976 (Amazon.com)