Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Alas, I wish I could say the same for myself. I don’t gather from your letter whether you were going to look upon the antique world with Sara, Dos and Katy t I wish I was, but with the sort of wishing that is remote and academic. I don’t care much where I am any more, nor expect very much from places. You will understand this. To me, it is a new phase, or, rather, a development of something that began long ago in my writing - to try to dig up the relevant, the essential, and especially the dramatic and glamorous from whatever life is around. I used to think that my sensory impression of the world came from outside. I used to actually believe that it was as objective as blue skies or a piece of music. Now I know it was within, and emphatically cherish what little is left.

  I am writing a picture called Infidelity for Joan Crawford. Writing for her is difficult. She can’t change her emotions in the middle of a scene without going through a sort of Jekyll and Hyde contortion of the face, so that when one wants to indicate that she is going from joy to sorrow, one must cut away and then cut back. Also, you can never give her such a stage direction as ‘telling a lie,’ because if you did, she would practically give a representation of Benedict Arnold selling West Point to the

  British. I live a quiet life here, keeping regular hours, trying to get away every couple of weeks for days in the sun at La folia, Santa Barbara. King Vidor appeared for a day or so, asked about you and is off for England. Eddie * and I talk of you. Sheilah, of course, was fascinated by you both, and I looked up old pictures in old scrapbooks for her. Tender Is the Night has been dramatized and may go on the stage next fall. I shall obtain you gallery seats for the first night where you can blush unseen.

  Scott

  5521 Amestoy Avenue

  Encino, California

  Spring, 1940

  Honey - that goes for Sara too:

  I have written a dozen people since who mean nothing to me - — writing you I was saving for good news. I suppose pride was concerned - in that personally and publicly dreary month of September last about everything went to pieces all at once and it was a long uphill pull.

  To summarize: I don’t have to tell you anything about the awful lapses and sudden reverses and apparent cures and thorough poisoning effect of lung trouble. Suffice to say there were months with a high of 99.8, months at 99.6 and then up and down and a stabilization at 99.2 every afternoon when I could write in bed - — and now for two and a half months and one short week that may have been grip - nothing at all. With it went a psychic depression over the finances and the effect on Scottie and Zelda. There was many a day when the fact that you and Sara did help me at a desperate moment... seemed the only pleasant human thing that had happened in a world where I felt prematurely passed by and forgotten. The thousands that I’d given and loaned - well, after the first attempts I didn’t even worry about that. There seem to be the givers and the takers and that doesn’t change. So you were never out of my mind - but even so no more present than always because this was only one of so many things.

  In the land of the living again I function rather well. My great dreams about this place are shattered and I have written half a novel and a score of satiric pieces that are appearing in the current Esquires about it. After having to turn down a bunch of well-paid jobs while I was ill there was a period when no one seemed to want me for duck soup - then a month ago a producer asked me to do a piece of my own for a small sum ($2000) and a share in the profits. The piece is ‘Babylon Revisited’ and an old and not bad Post story of which the child heroine was named Honoria! I’m keeping the name.

  It looks good. I have stopped being a prophet (third attempt at spelling this) but I think I may be solvent in a month or so if the fever keeps subservient to what the doctors think is an exceptional resistance —

  So now you’re up to date on me and it won’t be so long again. I might say by way of counter-reproach that there’s no word of any of you in your letter. It is sad about — . Writing you today has brought back so much and I could weep very easily.

  With dearest love,

  Scott

  Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

  Beverly Hills,

  California

  September 14, 1940

  Dear Gerald:

  I suppose anybody our age suspects what is emphasized - so let it go. But I was flat in bed from April to July last year with day and night nurses. Anyhow as you see from the letterhead I am now in official health.

  I find, after a long time out here, that one develops new attitudes. It is, for example, such a slack soft place - even its pleasure lacking the fierceness or excitement of Provence - that withdrawal is practically a condition of safety. The sin is to upset anyone else, and much of what is known as ‘progress’ is attained by more or less delicately poking and prodding other people. This is an unhealthy condition of affairs. Except for the stage-struck young girls people come here for negative reasons - all gold rushes are essentially negative - and the young girls soon join the vicious circle. There is no group, however small, interesting as such.

  Everywhere there is, after a moment, either corruption or indifference. The heroes are the great corruptionists or the supremely indifferent - by whom I mean the spoiled writers, Hecht, Nunnally Johnson, Dotty, Dash Hammett, etc. That Dotty has embraced the church and reads her office faithfully every day does not affect her indifference. So is one type of Commy Malraux didn’t list among his categories in Man’s Hope - but nothing would disappoint her so vehemently as success.

  I have a novel pretty well on the road. I think it will baffle and in some ways irritate what readers I have left. But it is as detached from me as Gatsby was, in intent anyhow. The new Armageddon, far from making everything unimportant, gives me a certain lust for life again. This is undoubtedly an immature throw-back, but it’s the truth. The gloom of all causes does not affect it - I feel a certain rebirth of kinetic impulses - however misdirected —

  I would like to have some days with you and Sara. I hear distant thunder about Ernest and Archie and their doings but about you not a tenth of what I want to know.

  With affection,

  Scott

  Other Letters

  TO ALIDA BIGELOW

  Cottage Club Princeton, New Jersey

  Postmarked January 10,1917

  Dear Alida:

  I never felt so depressed in my life as I do this afternoon and what should I do in the middle and lowest point of it but pick up North of Boston. - It made me still gloomier; but it’s well worth reading and for the most part good poetry. The first poem, the one about mending the wall, is the best thing in it I think.

  - Much obliged - you were very good to send it. Even the ‘platitudinous remark’ seemed satirical on a day like this however.

  I’ll send you a one-act play by me when it comes out in the next Nassau Lit. It’s called ‘The Debutante.’ - It’s a knockout!

  Just had a scrap with my English preceptor - he’s a simple bone- head and I’m not learning a thing from him. I told him so!

  I never had such a simple Christmas vacation as this one. The only two parties I enjoyed particularly were the German and the Lamda Sigma dance. Perhaps there was a reason - the incidentally I’ve cut out all drinking for one year. (Good old New Year’s resolution.) I suppose you’ve regaled Ruth with an account of my exploits at the first-named affair - but what bother I!

  Isn’t it a shame about Mrs S! I hear from Elkins Owlliphant, however, that she’s now back at school.

  I wonder if Sandy is going to maTry — ! Wouldn’t this be a suitable pair to travel around the streets of St Paul! He must have some strange power over woming!

  Haven’t heard a word from home since I got back here - Gee! Honestly! Never did I feel so low.

  It’s four o’clock and I have the electric light on - you can imagine what kind of day it is.

  If you can receive books and you won’t be shocked I’ll send you a knockout called The Confessions of an Inconstant Man. One part of it is rather me
an, the!! You’ll have to send it back as another copy is unprocurable for Love or Money. - Tell me whether you want to read it or not.

  I got the funniest letter from a girl in New York whom I’d never heard of saying that she had light brown hair and brown eyes and that she wanted to meet me. She said she’s seen that picture (awful chromo) of moi in The Times.

  Well Alida I’m sorry this letter is so gloomy but that’s the form I’m in so it can’t be helped.

  Give my best to Virginia Sweat and tell her I’m sorry I’ve got such a weak line. I am

  Yours till deth,

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  TO THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER

  Camp Chatham Orillia, Ontario

  July 18, 1907

  Dear Mother, I received your letter this morning and though I would like very much to have you up here I don’t think you would like it as you know no one here except Mrs Upton and she is busy most of the time. I don’t think you would like the accommodations as it is only a small town and no good hotels. There are some very nice boarding houses but about the only fare is lamb and beef. Please send me a dollar because there are a lot of little odds and ends I need. I will spend it cautiously. All the other boys have pocket money besides their regular allowance.

  Your loving son,

  Scott Fitzgerald

  TO MRS EDWARD FITZGERALD

  University Cottage Club Princeton, New Jersey

  November 14, 1917

  Dear Mother:

  You were doubtless surprised to get my letter but I certainly was delighted to get my commission.

  My pay started the day I signed the Oath of Allegiance and sent it back which was yesterday - Went up to Brooks Brothers yesterday afternoon and ordered some of my equipment.

  I haven’t received any orders yet but I think I will be ordered to Fort Leavenworth within a month - I’ll be there three months and would have six additional months’ training in France before I was ordered with my regiment to the trenches.

  I get $141 a month ($1700 a year) with a 10% increase when I’m in France.

  My uniforms are going to cost quite a bit so if you haven’t sent me what you have of my own money please do so.

  I’m continuing here going to classes until I get orders. I am Second Lieutenant in the regular infantry and not a reserve officer -I rank with a West Point graduate.

  Things are stupid here -I hear from Marie and Catherine Tighe occasionally and got a letter from Non two weeks ago - I hear he’s been ordered to Texas.

  Went down to see Ellen Stockton in Trenton the other night She is a perfect beauty.

  About the army, please let’s not have either tragedy or Heroics because they are equally distasteful to me. I went into this perfectly cold-bloodedly and don’t sympathize with the ‘Give my son to country’ etc.

  etc. etc.

  or ‘Hero stuff’

  because I just went and purely for social reasons. If you want to pray, pray for my soul and not that I won’t get killed - the last doesn’t seem to matter particularly and if you are a good Catholic the first ought to.

  To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing. I have never been more cheerful. Please be nice and respect my wishes.

  Love,

  Scott

  TO SHANE LESLIE

  Ft Leavenworth, Kansas December 22, 1917

  My dear Mr Leslie:

  Your letter followed me here - My novel isn’t a novel in verse. It merely shifts rapidly from verse to prose but it’s mostly in prose.

  The reason I’ve abandoned my idea of a book of poems is that I’ve only about twenty poems and can’t write any more in this atmosphere - while I can write prose, so I’m sandwiching the poems between reams of autobiography and fiction. It makes a potpourri, especially as there are pages in dialogue and in vers libre, but it reads as logically for the times as most public utterances of the prim and prominent. It is a tremendously conceited affair. The title page looks (will look) like this:

  THE ROMANTIC EGOTIST by

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  The Best is over.

  You may remember now and think and sigh Oh silly lover!’

  - — Rupert Brooke

  - — ‘Ou me coucha banga loupa Domalumba guna duma..

  - — Gilbert Chesterton

  “Experience is the name Tubby gives to all his mistakes.’

  - — Oscar Wilde

  I’ll send you a chapter or two to look over if you would. I’d like it a lot if you would. I’m enclosing you a poem that Poet Lore a magazine of verse has just taken.

  Yours,

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  2nd Lt, U.S., Co. Q

  Ft Leavenworth, Kansas February 4, 1918

  Dear Mr Leslie:

  This is just a note to inform you that the first draft of The Romantic Egotist will be ready for your inspection in three weeks altho I’m sending you a chapter called The Devil’ next week.

  Think of a romantic egotist writing about himself in a cold barracks on Sunday afternoons... yet that is the way this novel has been scattered into shape - for it has no form to speak of.

  Dr Fay told me to send my picture that he wants through you. Whether he meant for you to forward it to him or put it away until he returns I didn’t comprehend.

  I certainly appreciate your taking an interest in my book... By the way I join my regiment, the 45th Infantry, at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, in three weeks.

  Faithfully,

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Ft Leavenworth, Kansas

  Early February, 1918

  Dear Mr Leslie:

  Here’s Chapter XVI The Devil’ and Chapter XIII. I picked it out as a chapter you could read without knowing the story. I wish you’d look it over and see what you think of it It’s semi-typical of the novel in its hastiness and scrubby style.

  I have a week’s leave before joining my regiment and I’m going up to Princeton to rewrite. Now I can pass thru Washington and see you about this novel either on the seventh or eighth or ninth of February. Will you tell me which of these days you’d be liable to have an afternoon off? Any one of them is convenient as far as I’m concerned. I could bring you half a dozen chapters to look at and I’d like to know whether you think it would have any chance with Scribner.

  The novel begins nowhere as most things do and ends with the war as all things do. Chapter XIII will seem incoherent out of its setting. Well - I leave here Monday the 26th. After that my address will be Cottage Club - Princeton, N.J.

  I’d be much obliged if you’d let me know which afternoon would be most convenient for you.

  Faithfully,

  F. Scott Fitzgerald Did you ever notice that remarkable coincidence? Bernard Shaw is 61 years old, H. G. Wells is 51, G. K. Chesterton 41, you’re 31, and I’m 21 - all the great authors of the world in arithmetical progression.

  45th Infantry Camp Gordon, Georgia May 8, 1918

  Dear Mr Leslie:

  Your letter filled me with a variety of literary emotions... you see, yours is the first pronouncement of any kind that I’ve received upon my first born...

  That it is crude, increditably dull in places is too true to be pleasant... I have no idea why I hashed in all that monotonous drivel about childhood in the first part and would see it hacked out like an errant appendix without a murmur... There are too many characters and too much local social system in the Princeton section... and in all places all through, the verses are too obviously lugged in...

  At any rate I’m tremendously obliged to you for taking an interest in it and writing that awfully decent letter to Scribner... If he thinks that a revision would make it at all practicable I’d rather do it than not, or if he despairs of it I might try some less conservative publisher than Scribner is known to be...

  We have no news except that we’re probably going inside of two months and, officers and men, we’re wild to go...

  I wonder if you’re working on the history of Martin Luther or are on an
other tack... Do write a novel with young men in it, and kill the rancid taste that the semi-brilliant Changing Winds left on so many tongues. Or write a thinly disguised autobiography... or something. I’m wild for books and none are forthcoming... I wrote mine (as Stevenson wrote Treasure Island) to satisfy my own craving for a certain type of novel. Why are all the truish novels written by the gloomy half-twilight realists like Beresford and Walpole and St John Ervine? Even the Soul of a Bishop is colorless... Where are the novels of five years ago: Tono Bungay, Youth’s Encounter, Man Alive, The New Machiavelli? Heavens, has the war caught all literature in the crossed nets of Galsworthy and George Moore?

  Well... May St Robert (Benson) appear to Scribner in a dream...

  Faithfully,

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  P.S. Much obliged for mailing on Dr Fay’s letter.

  17th Infantry, Brig. Headquarters Camp Sheridan, Alabama January 13,

  1919

  Dear Mr Leslie:

  I can’t tell you how I feel about Monsignor Fay’s death - He was the best friend I had in the world and last night he seemed so close and so good that I was almost glad - because I think he wanted to die. Deep under it all he had a fear of that blending of the two worlds, that sudden change of values that sometimes happened to him and put a vague unhappiness into the stray corners of his life.

  But selfishly dam sorry. Never more

  ‘will we drink with the sunlight for lamp

  Myself and the dead’

  I know how you feel too and Stephen Parrott and Mrs Leslie and Mrs Chanler and Father Hemmick and Delbos and O’Kelly and Sanderson and the fifty people that must somehow have felt a great security in him. He was such a secure man: one knows that he is happy now - Oh God! I can’t write -