Won’t you give me the O.K. for Mamma’s frame? I’d like to get the picture home by Easter
Always with Love
Zelda
177. TO SCOTT
[Spring 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
The bus careened about the edges of a tired holiday; the lights went out but there weren’t any bandits.
I’ve been painting my peach blossoms all afternoon—they are such courageous flowers. I’ve got them in my stone jug, and the picture is another hope of producing one acceptable to the Museum.
There was still a faint aura of the world about my things to-day. It was happy seeing you. I love the quality of lost remote strange lands belonging to Tryon, and my homey tastes of dust and summer fields. I’ll be mighty glad when it’s time again to go.
Thanks for my two best days, and thanks that there is you. I’ll see you Monday, or when it so transpires—
’Till then,
Love and Devotion
Zelda
178. TO SCOTT
[April 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Do-Do—
The picnic was a success. We lost ourselves in the mazes of a panorama and laced the lunch to earth with unexplored latitudes and longitudes. I wished for you; and await the day when we can tramp so high, because the trip in a car is somewhat alarming. The top of the world is an apple orchard, belongs partly to Dr. Carrol and responds to the term “campagna”—History trails over a white mountain road for me—
We have now been married most portentously seventeen years, rather an astounding accumulation of time. We should have had a cake.
1. Violets commence, pale + perfect along the road-side.
2. Aenemonies are a small and perfect flower made of finely chiselled fragility. They are powder-blue.
3. The birds are beginning to squabble over the rights to the first spring dawns
4. Dog-wood awaits a more expansive season whereon to spread its imperious flames—
Devotedly, and thanks
Zelda
179. TO SCOTT
[May 31, 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Do-Do, sir—
It will be June again to-morrow—and the shadows skirt the lawn in fragrant elegance. Lets have the salmon fed on Chablis and spread the lunch on a white cloud and billow ourselves in the daisies. Are you bringing Scottie back with you? or will she be spending the summer in the outskirts of Madrid for atmosphere?
It is luxuriously hot with the promise of holiday heat in the air; and I want so to go to Alabama while the peaches are still bought on the street and while the heat is still a bright blue release.
I’ve had poison ivy in my eye, but now its over. Only I’ve been in abeyance for a week as a result.
Have fun—I envy you and everybody all over the world going and going—on no matter what nefarious errands.
With dearest love
Zelda
180. TO SCOTT
[Summer 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do:
Thanks for my telegram: every day I make ready for your return in all sorts of ways; by planning how I’ll be at the beach and hoping for all sorts of new adequacies for when we are to-gether.
I can’t think of more exciting auspices for crossing a continent than the 4 Marks Brothers however I’m glad you’re relieved—
Vines rust over the broken balconies of Tryon and in the evening deep wells of shadow absorb the world. It’s good to be there with Mamma, creaking through a summer noon in an old peeling rocker. Apple orchards slumber down the hill-sides and twist imperviously about the stem of Time—and every now + then a train shivers [in] the distance and distance is again glamorous + desirable.
I’m reading about what a remarkable sort of fellow you are from the pen of John Bishop.136 Like jonquils he acknowledges—but there isnt as yet any mention of my roses.
Love and
Love again
Zelda
In June, Scott received an offer to go to Hollywood and write for MGM. Despite his negative experiences with screenwriting in the past, he was excited, especially about the prospect of a regular salary—the studio offered him one thousand dollars a week for the first six months, with an option for renewal at a higher salary. In July 1937, Scott moved to Hollywood, where, under contract to MGM, he committed himself to digging his way out of debt while paying the bills to keep Zelda in the hospital and Scottie in school.
Enthusiasm aside, Scott still wasn’t well and couldn’t stay sober for any length of time. When he moved to Hollywood, he first settled into an apartment at the Garden of Allah, a hotel on Sunset Boulevard, where he was among old friends from New York—writers who had also gone to Hollywood to work in the movie industry, among them Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell, and Robert Benchley. He soon met Sheilah Graham, an attractive young gossip columnist, who reminded him of Zelda; she would become his friend, his lover, and often his caretaker. Many credit Sheilah’s devotion to Scott and her steadying influence as the reason his last three years were relatively happy and productive. Nevertheless, he remained determined to do everything he could to give Zelda things to look forward to. He visited her whenever he could, took her on vacations, and, when he could not be there, tried to arrange visits from Scottie and trips to her mother’s home in Montgomery. In September, Scott returned to Asheville and took Zelda on a vacation to Charleston and Myrtle Beach. Meanwhile, they exchanged letters; Zelda shared the excitement of Hollywood and hoped for Scott’s success and happiness.
181. TO SCOTT
[Summer 1937]
ALS, 3 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do:
It made me sad to get your note the other day. I hate to think of your struggling with those awful corsets. It will be good when you are well again—and happy. In California it’s a very happy world. There are fluttery happy happinesses in the air and happiness waiting to burst into blossom on every bush and the air is blue and tremulous and the flowery earth is palely roseate. And you’ll write a good picture full of the newness of the land to you.
I’m sorry we didn’t get along very well—Because you know that I think this:
The soul of the artist is beautiful and precious and without the artist neither would we be able to decipher the purpose of life nor would we be able to correlate our lives with the cosmic patterns[.] And the best thing I love of this world is the beauty of a generous soul—and so Do-Do I pray for you.
Naturally, it isnt fair about the money; if you will let me leave with Mamma, or at least ask Dr. Carrol to let me go as soon as he can so he won’t just think we can go on forever in ease and prosperity—I will be glad when some of your burdens are less.
With unpersonal love and love of what you love—and my best good wishes with all my heart.
The pattern of your soul
is God’s Glory—
Zelda
Good-bye, Do-Do. Happiness to you for wherever you are forever.
182. TO SCOTT
[July 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Do-Do, most eminent and
highly respected of
husbands—
So you escaped, so you are now all safe and happy in the land of glamour—and have fun.
Time continues to rotate round and round these wooded lanes. It rained and the world is deep and clear and of a new and greener concision. Daisies begin in the woods discs of mid-summer and augurs of a summer noon.
I hope Mamma will be along soon. She writes of Alabama heat which I envy her and writes of putting her house in ord
er to depart.
Thanks for thinking of me. I will try to produce some cards which could be blazoned on any facade—and give my Love to Scottie.
And I will be looking forward to seeing you—and to hearing about life and the world and how things are when you get back
Devotedly,
Zelda
183. TO SCOTT
[July 1937]
AL, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do:
I’m looking forward to to-morrow; there will be formalized informality under the pines and a politely rustling negation of the deep significance of a picnic plate.
It will be so good to see two people of my own again.
A rare may-pop explodes in pale exotic fanfare, and the weeds are raw and hot and high along the paths. Doves cradle a mellowing season and I will be always thinking of you.
It makes me happy that there should be new intangibilities for you to classify and more glamorous eventualities than lately.
Don’t worry about us here any more than you can’t help, because I promise
1) To mind the rules, which usually brings rewards.
2) Mamma’s close and I wont be lonely.
3) But will greet your return with all sorts of gleaming staminas and things to flash about the future.
Love, Do-Do, and good luck—
184. TO SCOTT
[August 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do—
Scottie and I floated over the terrace of Grove Park Inn in a lovely summer sun and watched Time rejeuvenate itself in a valley resting there for the season.
She was pretty and gracious and a great pleasure to be with— though somewhat alarmed at her expenditures. Her clothes were lovely and appropriate, all except the hat, and very becoming to her, so the bill seemed not exhorbitant to me.
My family had generously remembered her, so the season arrived in as many papers + ribbons as lend a gala air[.] We went to Church, and to see “I’ll Take Romance”137—which is witty, sophisticated and as charming. Every year Grace Moore becomes more adequate, which must be very gratifying to her.
Thanks again for the money—
And needless to say a Florida shore is more than a temptation—a dream—or even delirium—
Can we be brown + baked and mica-flaked—
I’ll be expecting you—
Devotedly + gratefully
Zelda
185. TO SCOTT
[Late Summer 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Scott:
It rains conscientiously every day and Time keeps vigil over a most bedraggled end of summer. I won the tennis tournament and am now[?] champion: it is such a beautiful game that I will be sorry when I am no longer able to play. The quickness of inter-dependent rhythms; the play of one set of reflex swung on another in a sustained volley are as compelling as the game itself. Artisticly the game is inexhaustible.
I wrote Rosalind for a hat, and evening dress: which were indispensible. She has promised to motor[?] me over from Atlanta when I go south, and I miss her presence very much. She contributes a sense of the grace of life in even the humblest of circumstance that is most edifying and pleasurable. Since there is rain every day in Atlanta also maybe she will come back again for the autumn haze and the harvest moon. No time is so appropriate to these regions as the blazoned skies of late September, the sensory somnolent mysteries of Indian summer and the bright brocaded hills streaming away under the power, and ominous possibilities of the hills.
I’m sorry Scottie is an effort. I wish I could have kept her here. She was so bored in Ashville, however, and hated it so passionately that I do not think any longer time here would have been to any advantage, save perhaps of reminding her of her parental obligation; and of keeping her in mind of the politesse necessary to live successfully in any sort of intimate relationship—
Zelda
186. TO SCOTT
[September 1937]
ALS, 7 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Scott:
Thanks for such a nice trip: it was a good thing to be driving over those long sad roads, stopping for things that are not really needed, and good to arrive at night smelling of sweet dust and gasoline and to recapture again the sense of never being quite sure of where you are.
The intent of the hotel in Fredricksburg was dignity, security and mahogany; while the hotel at Richmond was certainly of dramatic purport.
Williamsburg, perfected and ready will still perhaps be awaiting the perfect fête next time we go there. That place so appropriately harmonizes its guests to its most ingratiating purpose. At Charlotte the hotel didn’t matter, but maybe its message was of the indispensibility of places to sleep: they didn’t want to be bothered with inadequacy.
I liked the gold trees, and this golden time of year: the smoky sun, and roads leading back into summer.
Mt. Vernon seemed frank + graceful and Monticello nicely compact: but I thought both places were of indirect planning, and that neither had the sweep nor conveyed the sense of captured space that such a structure might have. That the architechts economy is evident, places the house on a basis of self-justification (legitimate beauty, ultimately—but only of tradition). In absolute: the purpose of the house might swing from the beams of aesthetic aspiration rather than dissected to meet the yet unarisen contingencies of the passage of time; ie where to put the neighbors children, and what to do with the mother-in-law.
The weather was perfect, the car fun; the food of adequate vagabondage and I had a good time. The possibility of new purposes arising carries one happily enough through life and even the pursuance of old ones helps to evaluate enterprizes clung to as “direction.”
The roads smell of reminiscences, and of pursuit.
Although Scotties vagabondage is indubitably hereditary, I don’t want her to do that again: that vaguely flowing around the country to whatever pleasant endroit that intrigues her fancy—anyhow she’s the sweetest of babies + maybe the Pullman porters will help her to master the Greek + Latin roots which seem to require itinerant working-up.
Again thanks: it was a better vacation than before, and perhaps our holidays will grow up to a brilliant future
Someday.
Gratefully
Zelda
187. TO SCOTT
[Fall 1937]
ALS, 5 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Scott:
We got back just in propitious time: The wind seethes with malice and already the elements are of the cast of tragedy. I’m glad we had a good time.
I miss my honey in bed and the bright morning sun loitering inquisitively about my room; and a bright impassive hotel room to greet me.
Won’t you get Mr Goldwyn to send me the perfume, and junk? You must have a list of it somewhere? But my real ulterior motive is this:
These pictures and my screen which I love, still, ought to be stored in some worthier endroit. I know you gave me twenty dollars to do it; but now I dont know where the twenty dollars is, and the pictures are still here. So may I have
1) A note of authorization to Dr. Carroll that I may ship my chef-d’oeuvres home
2) A check to cover same. I’m doing some very good work since our constitutional, and may produce something to inspire your admiration.
This is circus day: already the radios have a tinny swing and there are echoes of gilt and routine in the air; and nobody wants to wait to go. I’ll sketch, and write you about the miraculous 4th dimensional exploits of the acrobats on Sunday.
To me, there is no more exalting moment than a tenuate body launc[h]ed on the strength of its concept, whirled through the air a preconceived purpose—studies in rhythm and balance that make the architraves
of Notre Dame appear a simple achievement.
It’s a good circus day: its a little bit windy, and bright and sunny.
Bronze leaves; and brown-woods lit with glints of glowings, and bright skies issuing commentary on the inexorable urgencies of life; and of the seasons.
Love
Zelda
188. TO SCOTT
[Fall 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do—
Thanks for the money—When once it has seen the dark shades of these vaults, a fund is as inaccessible as the United States mint— However, with Christmas in the offing maybe there will be an earthquake or some such lubricating influence. Anyway thanks— again—
He won’t let me go home for Thanksgiving or for Christmas. But promises next spring.
I’m making cards—and painting Mamma some lillies which do not thrive in these rigorous hills—although to-day is lovely.
A bright + prosperous Sunday floods the bungalow with blocks of sunshine and the past hangs nostalgicly the splendour of its completed hopes along the roads—and I wish we were picnicing somewhere in these dry + punguent heavens
It would be heavenly if you could fly—to see me sometime
Devotedly
Zelda
189. TO SCOTT
[December(?) 1937]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest D. O.
My latest news is from Jeremiah the prophet, and I mull over the Osiris cult in a book on dancing. This gives a more constructive air to the influenza which I have musterred, and routed. It’s a misery. I’m glad it’s over.
Hoorah about Florida. Bring everything you can find, and we will enjoy. Please bring the architecture book and we can study patios in case we exhaust the interest of the ocean.
Despite this kindliest of weathers the winter has grown homesick for something else, somewhere else—and seems as anxious to get away as everybody else is: mooning and moping and stalking the more “intimately” useful hours until it is distraction not to[o] identified with some very glamorous purposes about to flower into strings of happy times.
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda Page 26