I do not want you to lose your gayety ever—or ever your seriousness.
Do you know any lawyers? Ask somebody at the next Y.H.P. function who’s gone on to law at Harvard. Then ask a law student who are the top prospects for the Editorship of the Harvard Law Review. Why not meet the lawyers. But for Christ’s sake meet the people, meet the communists at Vassar and at least be politician enough to be absolutely dumb about politics and if you [ ] ake them on their side.3
P.S. I can’t accentuate this too much as you move in such varying worlds so at the risk of being a bore I beg you once more to consider politics as being a religion, something that you can only discuss freely among those of the same general attitude as your own. With other people you will find yourself in intolerable arguments—friendships are being made and broken over questions of policy, a state of things which is liable to increase month by month. It is all white hot and the long pinchers of tact can be very useful.
1403 N. Laurel Avenue1
Hollywood, California
TO: Dr. Robert S. Carroll
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
March
8
1940
Dear Dr. Carroll:
Your letter was a complete surprise, but of course I am delighted that you feel the way you do.2 The news that she had been home alone in December was a complete surprise to me though as you know I would have been in agreement if you had ever thought before that a journey without a nurse was desirable. I have written Mrs. Sayre telling her of your letter and my agreement with it.
You have been magnificent about the whole thing and I am completely sensible of my financial and moral obligation to you. I may say privately that while I have always advocated her partial freedom my pleasure in this is qualified by an inevitable worry. Still one would rather have the worry than the continual sadness added to by her family’s attitude. The attitude will continue but it will be on a different basis and easier to disregard.
I certainly hope that you will be able to write Mrs. Sayre at length about her responsibilities in the matter and about Zelda doing something. I still wish there was someone there a little keener and younger, but since I am utterly unprepared to take on the job again I suppose it is lucky that there is any sort of home where she will at least be loved and cherished. The possibility of dissipation frightens me more than anything else—which I suppose is poetic justice.
Again gratefully and sincerely yours,
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
TO: Zelda Fitzgerald
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
March
8
1940
Dearest Zelda:—
It is wonderful to be able to write you this. Dr. Carroll has for the first time and at long last agreed that perhaps you shall try to make a place for yourself in the world. In other words, that you can go to Montgomery the first of April and remain there indefinitely or as long as you seem able to carry on under your own esteem.
So after four years of Dr. Carroll’s regime interrupted by less than twenty scattered weeks away from the hospital, you will have the sense of being your own boss. Already I can share your joy and I know how Scottie will feel.
I am sorry your entrance will not be into a brighter world. I have no real finances yet and won’t until I get a job. We have to live on those little pieces in Esquire and you know how little they pay. Scottie speaks of getting a job in Lord and Taylor’s this summer but I do not want her to do that for all sorts of reasons. Maybe by the time you get home things will be brighter. So there we are.
With dearest love,
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
TO: Zelda Fitzgerald
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
March
19
1940
Dearest:-
It seems to me best not to hurry things.
(a) I’d like you to leave with the blessings of Dr. Carroll (you’ve consumed more of his working hours than one human deserves of another—you’d agree if you’d see his correspondence with me). Next to Forel he has been your eventual best friend—better even than Myer. (Though this is unfair to Myer who never claimed to be a clinician but only a diagnostician).
But to hell with all that, and with illness
(b) Also, you’d best wait because I will certainly have more money three weeks from now than at present, and
(c) If things develop fast Scottie can skip down and see you for a day during her vacation—otherwise you won’t see her before summer. This is an if!
I don’t think you fully realize the extent of what Scottie has done at Vassar. You wrote rather casually of two years being enough but it isn’t. Her promise is unusual. Not only did she rise to the occasion and get in young but she has raised herself from a poor scholar to a very passable one; sold a professional story at eighteen; and moreover in very highbrow, at present very politically-minded Vassar she has introduced with some struggle a new note. She has written and produced a musical comedy and founded a club called the Omgim1 to perpetuate the idea—almost the same thing that Tarkington did in 1893 when he founded the Triangle at Princeton. She did this against tough opposition—girls who wouldn’t let her on the board of the daily paper because, though she could write, she wasn’t “politically conscious”.
We have every reason at this point to cheer for our baby. I would do anything rather than deny her the last two years of college which she has now earned. There is more than talent there—a real genius for organization.
Nothing has developed here. I write these “Pat Hobby” stories—and wait. I have a new idea now—a comedy series which will get me back into the big magazines—but my God I am a forgotten man. Gatsby had to be taken out of the Modern Library because it didn’t sell, which was a blow.
With dearest love always
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
TO: Scottie Fitzgerald
Retyped letter, 2 pp. Princeton University Encino, California
April
11
1940
Dearest Pie:-
Thanks for your letter. I’m writing this on a Sunday night, sans Françoise2 and I hope you can read it. I go to cinema work tomorrow on a sort of halfpay, half “spec” (speculation) business on my own story Babylon Revisited.3 Which is to say Columbia advances me living money while I work and if it goes over in installments with the producer, the company, the releasing people, I get an increasing sum. At bottom we eat—at top the deal is very promising.
Why I’m writing tonight is because I foresee three months of intensive toil (I feel like a criminal who has been in a hideout, been caught and has to go back to the big-house. I’ve been visited by my crooked doctor and my moll and Frances the Fence has protected me. Now the Big House again—Oh Jees them guards!)
To put you in a good humor for the ensuing gratuitous though friendly advice, let me say I got a letter from Andrew1 today, out of two years silence, in which he “judges you objectively” as a very fine girl. I was pleased naturally and wish they hadn’t counteracted the work I did on him by sending him to a school with a professional Holy-Joe for headmaster. His letter would make you very conceited—shall I send it? You seem to be a big shot down there.
The advice consists of this—Bobby Coleman’s name bobs up in so many of your letters that I assume he plays a big part in your life, no matter how seldom you see him. I’ve naturally formed a picture of him—vaguely I associate it with my relation with Marie Hersey at about your time of life. I think she told herself that I was hers for the special effort. But they had become matter-of-fact to me—lesser girls would have rivalled them for new excitement and anyone who summed them up, or seemed to me like your mother, would simply have washed them out of my mind.
Supposing Bobby to be self-absorbed, charming, successful, and full of the same psychology I had—how definitely handicapped you might be in counting
on him! By the very fact of old familiarity, old experience in common, it would be difficult, for men, if they’re alive, are continually looking for the new. I mean, that he might so to speak meet the Queen of Abyssinia in his travels. And how can you rival her?
I’m not driving at the obvious answer of having many strings to your bow. I suppose you have. But haven’t you taken Bobby as the only type? Women are capable of loving three or four types of masculine excellence like the women in Candida and Strange Interlude. You ought to have for example: as a cold intellectual—someone who’s made the Harvard Law Review—you can find him with a little effort. He’ll probably be taken already but it can be done. The point is that you have not exhausted any other type at its best except Bobby—you have only examined the second rate unproved man of other species (Kilduff, Naylor, etc.) You should know the young predatory business type, hard as hell, he will lick you maybe but you should know him. A lead at Princeton would be one of the Ivy boys—not Harvey but he might be a wedge—a boy inheriting a big business.
All the above is probably very obvious so froget it. Are any of the enclosed friends of yours?
Dearest love,
Daddy
P.S. Have paid The Wallace Co., $35. and Altman $40., on account.
The printed enclosure reminded me that if you have occasion to drive, I forgot to tell you that in the rain don’t depress the clutch—use the break only. And on hills—go down in the gear in which you’d have come up.
I’m moving in town to be near my work, so will you address me care of my new agent, Phil Berg, 9484 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills or General Delivery, Encino, as they will also forward it. Will write you as soon as I have a permanent address.
TO: Zelda Fitzgerald
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
Encino, California
April
11
1940
Dearest Zelda:-
I got your wire today asking for $5. and simultaneously one came from Dr. Carroll saying you were coming out. I don’t know what the rail fare to Montgomery is, but I am sending you herewith $60., which I hope will take care of your ticket, baggage, etc. You are leaving bills behind you, I know, which I will try to take care of as soon as I can. I have sent Jean West $25. on account. Moreover I have sent a check to your mother for your expenses when you get to Montgomery.
Now as to the general arrangement: I am starting to work on this “speculation” job. That is, they are giving me very little money but if the picture is resold when finished the deal will be somewhat better. I hesitated about accepting it but there have been absolutely no offers in many months and I did it on the advice of my new agent. It is a job that should be fun and suitable to my still uneven state of health. (Since yesterday I seem to be running a fever again) In any case we can’t go on living indefinitely on those Esquire articles. So you will be a poor girl for awhile and there is nothing much to do about it. I can manage to send you $30., a week of which you should pay your mother about $15. for board, laundry, light, etc. The rest will be in checks of alternately $10. and $20.—that is, one week the whole sum will amount to $35., one week $25., etc. This is a sort of way of saving for you so that in alternate weeks you will have a larger lump sum in case you need clothes or something.
You will be cramped by this at first—moreso than in the hospital, but it is everything that I can send without putting Scottie to work which I absolutely refuse to do. I don’t think you can promise a person an education and then snatch it away from them. If she quit Vassar I should feel like quitting all work and going to the free Veteran’s Hospital where I probably belong.
The main thing is not to run up bills or wire me for extra funds. There simply aren’t any and as you can imagine I am deeply in debt to the government and everyone else. As soon as anything turns up I will naturally increase your allowance so that you will have more mobility, clothes, etc.
I am moving in town to be near my work. For the present, will you address me care of my new agent, Phil Berg, 9484 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California. If you forget, “General Delivery, Encino” will be forwarded to me also. As soon as I have a new permanent address I will write you. I do hope this goes well. I wish you were going to brighter surroundings but this is certainly not the time to come to me and I can think of nowhere else for you to go in this dark and bloody world. I suppose a place is what you make it but I have grown to hate California and would give my life for three years in France.
So Bon Voyage and stay well.
Dearest love,
TO: Scottie Fitzgerald
TLS, 1 p. Princeton University
Encino, California
April
12
1940
Dearest Scottie:
I’m sorry about the tone of the telegram I sent you this morning, but it represents a most terrific worry. You are doing exactly what I did at Princeton. I wore myself out on a musical comedy there for which I wrote book and lyrics, organized and mostly directed while the president played football. Result: I slipped way back in my work, got T.B., lost a year in college—and, irony of ironies, because of scholastic slip I wasn’t allowed to take the presidency of the Triangle.
From your letter I guess that you are doing exactly the same thing and it just makes my stomach fall out to think of it. Amateur work is fun but the price for it is just simply tremendous. In the end you get “Thank you” and that’s all. You give three performances which everybody promptly forgets and somebody has a breakdown—that somebody being the enthusiast.
Please, please, please delegate every bit of the work you can and keep your scholastic head above water. To see a mistake repeated twice in two generations would be just too much to bear. This is the most completely experienced advice I’ve ever given you. What about that science and the philosophy? You’ve got to find hours to do them even if you have to find a secret room where you can go and study.
Dearest love always.
Daddy
TO: S. J. and Laura Perelman
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
May
13
1940
Dear Sid and Laura:-
This is a love missive so do not be alarmed. I am not giving a tea for either the Princess Razzarascal or Two-ticker Forsite. But I am leaving this Elysian haunt in two weeks (the 29th to be exact) and sometime before that nonce I wish you two would dine or lunch. I know Sunday isn’t a good day for you because of the dwarfs and Saturday next I’m going to Maurice Evans1 and Sunday I’m engaged (now you know, girls, isn’t it wonderful?)
—but any other day between now and the 28th would be fine. I want to see you and very specifically you, and for the most general and non-specific reasons. The days being at their longest it is no chore to find this place up to 7:30 and perhaps the best idea is dinner. We could either dine à quatre or add the Wests and some other couple—say the Mannerheims or Browders, and afterwards play with my model parachute troops. At any event, side arms will not be de rigeur.* Sheilah will be with me just as merry as can be, to greet you on the porch with a julep. I have just re-read “Crime and Punishment” and the chapters on gang labor in “Capitalist Production” and am meek as a liberal bourgeoise lamb.
Call me up on the party line or drop me a note. The only acceptable excuse is that you’re going on vacation or have empetigo because I want to see you.
With spontaneous affection,
*Outer boom or gaff on an old New England square-riggered ship.
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
phone: STate 4–0578
TO: Zelda Fitzgerald
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
Encino, California
May
18
1940
Dearest Zelda:-
It’s hard to explain about the Saturday Evening Post matter. It isn’t that I haven’t tried, but the trouble with them goes back to the time of Lorimer’s retirement in 1935
. I wrote them three stories that year and sent them about three others which they didn’t like. The last story they bought they published last in the issue and my friend, Adelaide Neil on the staff, implied to me that they didn’t want to pay that big price for stories unless they could use them in the beginning of the issue. Well that was the time of my two year sickness, T.B., the shoulders, etc., and you were at a most crucial point and I was foolishly trying to take care of Scottie and for one reason or another I lost the knack of writing the particular kind of stories they wanted.
As you should know from your own attempts, high priced commercial writing for the magazines is a very definite trick. The rather special things that I brought to it, the intelligence and the good writing and even the radicalism all appealed to old Lorimer who had been a writer himself and liked style. The man who runs the magazine now is an up and coming young Republican who gives not a damn about literature and who publishes almost nothing except escape stories about the brave frontiersmen, etc., or fishing, or football captains—nothing that would even faintly shock or disturb the reactionary bourgeois. Well, I simply can’t do it and, as I say, I’ve tried not once but twenty times.
As soon as I feel I am writing to a cheap specification my pen freezes and my talent vanishes over the hill and I honestly don’t blame them for not taking the things that I’ve offered to them from time to time in the past three or four years. An explanation of their new attitude is that you no longer have a chance of selling a story with an unhappy ending (in the old days many of mine did have unhappy endings—if you remember.) In fact the standard of writing from the best movies, like Rebecca, is, believe it or not, much higher at present than that in the commercial magazines such as Colliers and the Post.
Thank you for your letter. California is a monotonous climate and already I am tired of the flat, scentless tone of the summer. It is fun to be working on something I like and maybe in another month I will get the promised bonus on it and be able to pay last year’s income tax and raise our standard of living a little.
A Life in Letters Page 52