I think Dr. Carroll intends my staying here another two weeks, maybe three—but you can reach him here in any case. It will be superlative to see Scottie: I wish you’d come rest, and enjoy, before hand so we can make a successful reunion this time—Where will we go?
Devotedly, and gratefully—
Zelda
I’d like to share this lovely bright blue beach
215. TO SCOTT
[February 1939]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Sarasota, Florida]
Monsieur:
Life treats us rather triumphantly down here: the ora[n]ge blooms and blows and fills the air with the bitter-sweet of an effete hardihood; the circus glorifies—anyway destiny proceeds. I swim, and rejoice in the personal, yet classic, appeal of the little beach[.] Art school progresses. My costumes are delirious, and of no particular application, and I prepare a port-folio for you to sell to Mr. Goldwyn: entitled the Attributes of Ego, or sort of. It would be a good idea if all fashion drawings transported themselves into the realm of the emotions, and began to convey how one should feel while looking how, as well.
I’ll be very glad to see you, and Scottie. Lets spend Easter idyllicly somewhere where nothing can happen of disastrous natures. We’ll pick violets and sniff clouds and nibble the edges of tranquil afternoons. Does the possibility of Tryon outrage anything? Or leave neglected some more urgent glamour?
Meantime, it is a blessed estate to be out of the cold waves that sweep the front page. The shadows hang fate over the grass down here, and the morning sun is of a roseate nature.
When will I see you?
Address Hotel Central Park Manor—
Florida—
Devotedly
Zelda
Thanks more than I can say for the Easter Happiness for Mamma. It’s so thoughtful of you; and it make[s] me so happy to be able to give her pleasure.
216. TO SCOTT
[March 1939]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do:
Thanks again for the vacation. It was good to sense again the world of pleasure well-afforded, earned, and to be carried along on the impetus of concepts of pleasure so perfectly realized. It’s a fine way to greet the morning: on the perfume of strawberries; and gratifying to swim in an advertisement.
The possibilities of heartbreak lurked in the romance of those lush gardens, and money bought so many happy possibilities.
I don’t like to fly.
It’s fun sorting my possessions and cataloging my memories: and it’s good to know that in the spring I will be out again.
Dearest: I am always grateful for all the loyalties you gave me, and I am always loyal to the concepts that held us to-gether so long: the belief that life is tragic, that a mans spiritual reward is the keeping of his faith: that we shouldn’t hurt each other. And I love, always your fine writing talent, your tolerance and generosity; and all your happy endowments. Nothing could have survived our life.
Devotedly,
and always with my
deepest gratitude
Zelda
217. TO SCOTT
[March 1939]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
We had such a happy time.6 Scottie is lovely; and it is like a breath of the popular classics to feed ones nostalgias on the most-significant properties of the many whirligigs which compose her orientation. A suit-case full of happiness and a hat-box full of souvenir[s], curl-papers and emolluments for the rejeuvenation of the era transport a person promisorily from one world to another of its interpretations. Scottie is so gratifying. This year at Vassar has made her conversant with the manner of thinking in theoretical terms, and fitted her responses to the tone of life as a compendium rather than working at it from the completely personal + isolated orientations of earlier youth, and of more restricted aspirations[.] We had a most entertaining conference, and decided what ought to be done about everything.
The pear trees are in flower, of secrets, and promisorily of Heaven. The jonquils are in bloom. They’re sad to me, I think they are asphodels. The white violets have just begun; their possibilities are infinitely indicative suggestions of carefully disciplined + catalogued memories + of the cerebral delectation of mastered emotions. It will be good to see you. Shall we stay in Tryon?7
Did you know that Mamma was crippled; and house-bound; and if there’s any possibility of such, I’d like to see her.
Love, and gratitude
Zelda
218. TO SCOTT
[April 1939]
ALS, 4 pp., on stationery embossed HOTEL IRVING / 26 GRAMERCY PARK / EAST 20TH STREET / NEW YORK at top center8
Dearest Scott:
I’m so sorry about the turmoil. I antagonized you apparently, so I did the best I could to see you well provided for, and will leave for Ashville tomorrow Tuesday.
Don’t feel too badly about the children. They went to the club at Larchmont,9 and had dates and were provided with an adequate evening.
Mr. Case10 is the truest of friends. He shielded you from any possible criticism, and at the expense of his whole day managed to help John Palmer see you to safety.
Your eye was most distressing; but the hospital will take care of it better than could otherwise have been provided and will be able to give you a good looking over as well. Your cough is awful; and you are exhausted. Please take care of yourself. There is a possibility of so much happiness if you will be of a more conservative intent.
I got money from Ober ($70): most of which I paid on account to the troublous times. To-day, I’ll have to ask him for more. Mr. Case said he would send those bills straight to Ober; I didnt know what else to do with them.
D. O.: I pray that your eye will soon be well, that you will be better for your rest, and will be awaiting a more auspicious meeting—
We are indebted very heavily to
John Palmer, who solved the situation by at last finding a doctor who was willing to assume responsibility; and to Mr. Case who kept you off the street at considerable effort and who was as gracious as possible throughout—
Good luck
Devotedly
Zelda
P.S. Needless to say I never heard of such a thing as regards the hospital—
219. TO SCOTT
[April 1939]
ALS, 4 pp.
[New York City]
Dearest Do-Do:
It seems useless to wait any more; I know that you are better; and being taken care of; and I am of no assistance; so I’ll go back to the hospital on the 2:30 train.
I am distressed about your lungs. Why dont you come to Tryon? It’s the best place in the world for such and we could keep a little house on the lake and let you get better. We might have a very happy summer in such circumstance—you like it there, and I am very clever at serving bird-song and summer clouds for breakfast.
Scottina could visit us; and we could find a better meaning to so many things.
Meantime: I have seen a fascinating exhibit of pictures at the Metropolitan during which I thought how you would have loved the “evolution of the American Scene” as portrayed from croquet lawns and corner stores, through the first rail-roads and steam-boats and minstrelsy and every known sort of adventure straight up to the present. I wondered had you known the wharf at Buffalo as it was presented,11 and remembered the summer at West Port.
I saw a news-reel movie of irrelevant if pictorial life in distant parts, and visited Ober to the extent of $150; and had the situation permitted of peace-of-mind would have had a very agreeable time.
Please believe that I stayed over solely to the purpose of helping you if I could. I know from experience what a difference it makes in life when somebody cares about your troubles.
—We owe John Palmer a debt of gratitude of considerable proportions. He f
ound the doctor; and “discussed” with Mr. Case; and handled the whole situation.
Mr. Case also was most gracious and was ultimately considerate of you. I know that I have written you all this before but, as you know my letters are censored from the Hospital and I wont have another chance to communicate until we meet again.
To the Hospital, this version: We had a most enviable trip; and everything was according to the rules. This last refers to cigarettes and wine12 concerning which I will follow our agreement. As to any irregularity of arrival your lungs are bad, and required attention, and I am capable of travelling alone so there wasnt any use in your adding another tiring journey to what you had before you.
D. O. please take care of yourself—So you will be well again and happier than these last times. There are so few people of our era who have made original contributions to the life about us, and not many who can be so charming, and almost not any with a greater capacity for enjoyment.
There are still a great many things which could give us pleasure
And there are such a lot of people fond of you.
I havent bought anything save the dress + hat in which I appear, flowers thereon, some stockings + 4 pr. of pants.
The money is simply disparu—
With the best of good wishes, and devotion, and aspirations to mutual purpose sometime.
Zelda
220. TO SCOTT
[April 1939]
ALS, 1 p., on stationery embossed HOTEL STAFFORD / MT. VERNON PLACE / BALTIMORE, MD. at top center13
Dear:
I’m sorry this trip has been so catastrophic: I’m grateful for the generosity of your intent; and always hoping that you will feel better—pretty soon.
Zelda
221. TO SCOTT
[April 1939]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Do-Do:
Don’t feel bad. You were so sweet in the station. I wish things had been so that we were going on to-gether somewhere. There are lots of happy places: it says so in the time tables, and before long we’ll surely find one. Get well. Men with fever are not supposed to travel about; and your lungs are very valuable to lots of people besides yourself.
It’s a very good thing to be jogging through a country-side sprinkled with blossoms. The fields are gold and the trees still preening themselves and life seems measured and harnessed of purpose if not of promise. We could grow things, and have them all turn out according to recipe. And make things: and be astonished that the plans work, and that things are how they ought to be.
I’m glad you’ve got a good house: and Flora[?], and recompensing things. Take it easy. We dont need anything anywhere nearly so much as we need you, well and happy once more.
Meantime: You know I’ll be there waiting on that green hill-side: and expecting you.
Love
Zelda
222. TO ZELDA
[Encino, California]
TL (CC), 1 p.
May 6, 1939
Dearest Zelda:-
Excuse this being typewritten, but I am supposed to lie in bed for a week or so and look at the ceiling. I objected somewhat to that regime as being drastic, so I am allowed two hours of work every day.
You were a peach throughout the whole trip and there isn’t a minute of it when I don’t think of you with all the old tenderness and with a consideration that I never understood that you had before. Because I can never remember anything else but consideration from you, so perhaps that sounds a little too much like a doctor or someone who knew you only when you were ill.
You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, most beautiful person I have ever known, but even that is an understatement because the length that you went to there at the end would have tried anybody beyond endurance. Everything that I said and that we talked about during that time stands—I had a wire from daughter in regard to the little Vassar girl, telling me her name, and saying that the whole affair was washed out, but I don’t feel at home with the business yet.
There was a sweet letter waiting here from you for me when I came. With dearest love.
223. TO SCOTT
[May 1939]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
The tulips follow the aspirations of the morning, little white things observe the decorum of spring gardens in bloom and there are glad outbursts of yellow everywhere. Tennis has started. Needless to say chasing the experience of thirty-nine years about the court is a less exhuberant pursuit than tennis has been. I think nostalgicly of our Alice-in-Wonderland garden and remember the sickle pear, new moons, and the first autumnal hoarding of sunshine + regrets, Saturdays cake-baking exploits and long dramatized rides through the woods with the parachute jumper. We had a pleasant house. The ferns beneath the window, the late sun on the porch, jouncing along through the trees on my bicycle; it seems as if all these should be recapturable. There must be some recompensatory good things at 40: or does ones status have to have attained ones aspirations by that time. There may be even grace in cataloging and in revising and linking the chronicle according to ones present lights.
I paint, and am contributing a paper on Cuba to my aspirations before the sewing class. As you know, my activities are of a very introspective nature, and never have good plots.
If there is enough money to buy a white shirt, a dinner dress, and a sport-suit, I would be grateful for these things. Rosalind could shop in Atlanta if you sent her the check. They are not urgent: about [illegible] this I would like them very much but dont have to have—
Because I dont much think that you will want me out there before you’re better,14 and the Dr. told me four months minimum—Needless to say, I know that we need all the money there is so dont feel badly if it is more expedient to refuse—
Please write me how you are. I hope you’re superficially well again—and taking care
Love
Zelda
224. TO SCOTT
[May 1939]
ALS, 3 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest D. O.
The summer pursues its realization in floral tribute to the passage of time. We play volley-ball in the deep shadows and aspire to the jugging of the very melancholy birds that haunt these valleys. This is a lush and green and promisory world; and I wish that you had come back to Tryon to get well under the blue eternal Heavens.
We hiked to the top of something else yesterday and admired the world in panoramic terms and moored the mind to classic and impervious white clouds; and browsed.
My painting is once again become not as compelling as I like it to be; but I still pursue; and we will one day have the Scottina peddling and panhandling the wares to a good advantage
Mamma is still in the house; and you in the bed: Time indeed uses us ill. However, you have got well before, and theres no reason why with care and patience you shouldn’t do it again. So I do not despair.
Scottie does not know how her summer is to be disposed of. If it is not too difficult of arrangement, I would love so having her down her[e]. We could spend two very happy weeks playing tennis and swimming at very inexpensive boarding-houses either in Saluda or Hendersonville. Though her inclination may revolt, to me, she owes at least a month to her parental obligation. It would be such a happy time for us, I’m sure: being lazy, and friendly and sharing the intimate happiness of summer-time in a tumble down pavillion. That sort of memory one thinks on so happily later.
Wont you do it? Time goes on: it only means a letter to Dr. Carroll to you, but the prospect such presents to me is the possibility of renewing the most vital relationship that life offers. It would be profitable to Scottie to have a little spare time: so many years have passed since she hasnt had a moment for introspection. She really likes to loaf and get sunburned and read and to catalogue her own mind as well as either of us. The time out of doors
might be a very good thing considering the activities that are arranged for next winter—
Meantime: nothing happens with a great deal of conviction, and one awaits the aging of the world with whatever equanimity there is.
Good luck, dear—
I hope your lungs are much much better
Devotedly
Zelda
225. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
[Encino, California] May 19, 1939
Dearest Zelda:-
I am still in bed, but I expect to be up in a day or so. I knew that all this was more or less true after that damn sweating in Cuba, but I am in very good hands. I have had a consultation with a specialist and it won’t be a very serious business like the time in 1935. In fact, it is as much the question of exhausted nerves as of the chest. Manage to do a couple o[f] hours work every day and I am sorry if my last letter was alarmist. The eyes are perfectly all right now.
A letter enclosing $150. to Rosalind must have crossed yours. I hope it will make you happy.
The New York doctor was very much an alarmist and knew nothing of my recuperative powers. I hope to God that what you heard from him did not depress you because it will not be four months. I am going to be on my feet within at least a week and expect to be back at full-time work again before six weeks.
I note what you say about Scottie and of course I want you to have two weeks with her—or I should rather say a good deal more now that you understand each other again. Your letter almost makes me weep thinking of me sick. There’s not the faintest thing to worry about this and if you want a confirmatory letter from my doctor he will be glad to arrange it.
As I told you before our plans for this summer need not perhaps be so materially altered as you think.
With dearest love,
226. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 2 pp. May 29, 1939
Dearest:-
From your letter I picture you imagining the situation much worse than it is. In the first place, the touch of T. B. is not as bad as it was in 1935 and the surrounding morale situation makes it entirely a different proposition. At that time, I was getting deeper into debt—I was terribly discouraged about the comparatively small sale of “Tender Is the Night”—I had Scottie on my hands as an adolescent with almost no place to turn for help except Mrs. Owens and her French teacher— and last and most important, you were an awfully sick girl yourself, in fact you had reached the very lowest point of your illness—now all that is changed and if you could see me dictating this now, sitting up in a corner of my room, fully dressed with the sun shining and full of hope and plans and merely a little angry with myself for taking on those last two jobs when I felt my health breaking, you would lose the despondency which I detect in your letters. I am quite able to work, there’s no drinking question of any kind and I wish you’d think of me as getting better every day and more and more anxious to see you.
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda Page 30