Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)
Page 474
Scott
TO GILBERT SELDES
Ellerslie Edgemoor, Delaware
Probably Fall, 1927
Dear Gilbert:
The doll was beautiful. I sleep with it. You are the dearest grandmother a little girl ever had.
As I sit here in my spacious twenty-room mansion, hearing the howling of the winds outside and the groans of my toiling servants below, I think of how wonderful it is to be born a German prince- let. The letter I wrote is in our very owniest dialect, Iranian- Ruthanian, or, allowing for the Cyrillic alphabet, Chinese Basque, altho some philologists and restaurateurs admit nothing of the sort.
Tell Amanda that we have not taken up Behaviorism but are going to govern our child’s life by the cipher concealed in the Sears, Roebuck catalogue which proves that Julian Rosenwald wrote the works of Edgar Guest. I don’t blame either of you for being disgusted with our public brawl the other day - but the manhole is on again; we are sober and almost the nicest people I ever met.
How about the Dial reprints for $30.00! Have you forgotten - we are yearning for them and if you send them I can sell two other sets.
We’d love to have you for Christmas or New Year’s or both. We are on the wagon till then and our difference of opinion, which had been going on for a miserable fortnight for two weeks before we came to New York and led to all the unpleasantness, is settled and forgotten.
Zelda wrote you a letter but mailed it to 82nd St without the number.
Love to you both,
Scott
TO THOMAS LINEAWEAVER
Ellerslie Edgemoor, Delaware
1927 or 1928
Dear Tom:
I’ve been meaning to write you for months. I’m afraid I was the world’s greatest bore last night. I was in the insistent mood - you know the insistent mood? I’m afraid I irritated both you * Lineaweaver, a college friend, and his wife Eleanor had been to a party at the Fitzgeralds’.
and Eleanor, and I wanted to please you more than anyone there. It’s all very dim to me but I remember a lot of talk about fairies and the managing kind of American woman, whatever that means. It’s possible that I may be apologizing to the wrong people - anyway if I was lousy, please forgive me and tell Eleanor I can be almost human when sober.
We are on the wagon. If you come down to Roseleaf or Rosen- bloom or whatever that place is please come over! We are always here weekends. I’m awfully anxious to see you and bicker with you under more favorable circumstances. Tell Eleanor I love her and I want to marry her. Does that fix everything?
Scott
TO ZOE AKINS
Ellerslie Edgemoor, Delaware
February, 1928
Dear Zoë: Darling Zoë:
Are you, by any chance, so to speak, here? If you are, perhaps you’d come out Sunday to lunch - Thornton Wilder and some others are coming down.
Perhaps, even, you and Miss Taylor would come out after the performance for a small revel Saturday night -? If we sent the car for you? We are just five minutes from the Dupont Hotel. Will you phone 5859? We do so want to see you.
Always Your Slave,
F. Scott Fitzgerald Zelda is in Philadelphia at ballet school for the afternoon so I’m writing this for her.
I hear The Furies t is great. We are seeing it tonight - Friday.
TO JULIAN STREET
c/o Guaranty Trust (en route to Paris)
Postmarked July 1, 1928
Dear Julian Street:
My best to you! My contempt for Tarkington extends only to his character of being ashamed of his early sins and thus cutting out of his experience about one-half of life. He woke up one morning sober and 40, and thought that no one had ever been lascivious or drunk or vain except himself, and turned deliberately back to the illusions of his boyhood.
Delighted that you liked Wilder - do read Hemingway - what do you mean by a theme? ‘Begin with an individual and you have created a type. Begin >yith a type and you have created nothing,’ as an humble writer once said. Books called ‘oil’ or ‘money’ - surely the author of Sunbeams, Inc t couldn’t mean what you seem to mean. War and Peace is one man’s point of view always. Excuse this lousy pen.
Yours cordially, Scott Fitzgerald That clipping was fine and am having it duplicated to send to young writers who ask for advice.
TO BETTY MARKELL
c/o Guaranty Trust 4 Place dé la Concorde Paris, France
September 16, 1929
Dear Betty Markell:
I haven’t answered your letter before because it’s one of the nicest letters I’ve ever received, and it came when I was in a mood of tremendous dejection and I wanted to wait until I was a human being again before answering it. About five years ago I became, unfortunately, interested in the insoluble problems of personal charm and have spent the intervening time on a novel that’s going to interest nobody and probably alienate the remaining half dozen who are kind enough to be interested in my work. Unfortunately my sense of material is much superior to my mind or my talent and if I ever survive this damned thing I shall devote my life to musical comedy librettos or become swimming instructor to the young Mikadesses of Japan.
The Basil Lee stories were a mistake - it was too much good material being shoved into a lousy form. I’m glad you liked them - I thought they were rather better than the response they had. I am going to be in New York from January 5th-March 1st. If you make trips East and can stand disillusion about people I’d love to meet you. I have no address yet, save care of my publishers. With most sincere hopes of meeting you, Yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO MRS EDWARD FITZGERALD
Beau-RivagePalaceOuchy-Lausanne
June, 1930
Dear Mother:
My delay in writing is due to the fact that Zelda has been desperately ill with a complete nervous breakdown and is in a sanitarium near here. She is better now but recovery will take a long time. I did not tell her parents the seriousness of it so say nothing - the danger was to her sanity rather than her life.
Scottie is in the apartment in Paris with her governess. She loved the picture of her cousins. Tell Father I visited the and thought of the first poem I ever heard, or was it The Raven?’ Thank you for the Chesterton.
Love,
Scott
TO MRS EDWARD FITZGERALD
Switzerland
June, 1930
Dear Mother:
I’ve thought of you both a lot lately and I hope Father is better after his indigestion. Zelda’s recovery is slow. Now she has terrible eczema - one of those mild but terrible diseases that don’t worry relations but are a living hell for the patient. If all goes as well as it did up to a fortnight ago we will be home by Thanksgiving.
According to your poem I am destined to be a failure. I re- enclose it.
(1) — All big men have spent money freely. I hate avarice or even caution.
(2) — I have never forgiven or forgotten an injury.
(3) — This is the only one that makes sense.
(4) — If it’s worth doing. Otherwise it should be thrown over immediately.
(5) — No man’s criticism has ever been worth a damn to me.
These would be good rules for a man who wanted to be a chief clerk at 50.
Thanks for the check but really you mustn’t. I re-enclose it. The snap I’ll send to Scottie. The children are charming. Address me care of my Paris bank though I’m still by Father’s Castle of Chil- lon. Have you read Maurois’ Life of Byron? And Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel?
Much love to you both,
Scott
TO DAYTON(?) KOHLER
819 Felder AvenueMontgomery, Alabama
January 25, 1932
Dear Mr Kohler:
The reason for my long delay in writing you is this - shortly after receiving your letter I left France for Switzerland in terrible confusion because of the sickness of my wife. My current correspondence was packed by mistake in a crate - which has only just been op
ened. I am terribly sorry.
I was delighted naturally with your article about me. You cover me with soothing oil and make me feel more important than I have for ages.
I am mid-channel now in a double-decker novel which I hope will justify some of the things that you say. Perhaps Swanson of College Humor or someone there might be interested - for the moment I am vieux jeu and completely forgotten by the whole new generation which has grown up since I published my last book in ‘26. So since there has been no published development since then, I think the article would be for the present hard to sell.
I am doubly grateful for your interest and again I apologize for my apparent discourtesy in not answering you before.
If you are ever in Montgomery, Alabama, I would love to see you. My address is 819 Felder Avenue.
Sincerely,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO GERTRUDE STEIN
Hotel Rennert Baltimore,
Maryland
April 28, 1932
Dear Gertrude Stein:
You were so nice to think of me so far off and send me your book. Whenever I sit down to write I think of the line that you drew for me and told me that my next book should be that thick.
So many of your memorable remarks come often to my head, and they seem to survive in a way that very little current wisdom does.
I read the book, of course, immediately, and was half through it for the second time (learning a lot as we all do from you) when my plans were upset by my wife’s illness, and by an accident it was consigned to temporary storage.
I hope to be in Europe this summer and to see you. I have never seen nearly as much of you as I would like.
Yours always, admiringly and cordially,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO ANDREW TURNBULL
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson, Maryland
August 2, 1932
Reputed Bantling:
In deponing and predicating incessantly that you were a ‘Shakespearean clown’ I did not destinate to signify that you were a wiseacre, witling, dizzard, chowderhead, Tom Nody, nizy, radoteur, zany, oaf, loon, doodle, dunderpate, lunkhead, sawney, gowk, clod-poll, wise man of Boeotia, jobbernowl or mooncalf but, subdititiously, that you were intrinsically a longhead, luminary, ‘barba tenus sapientes,’ pundit, wrangler, licentiate learned The- ban and sage, as are so many epigrammatists, wit-worms, droits de corp, sparks, merry-andrews, mimes, posture-masters, pucinellas, scaramouches, pantaloons, pickle-herrings and persifleurs that were pullulated by the Transcendent Skald.
Unequivocally,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO ANDREW TURNBULL
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Tow son,Maryland
August 18, 1932
Dear Andronio:
Upon mature consideration I advise you to go no farther with your vocabulary. If you have a lot of words they will become like some muscle you have developed that you are compelled to use, and you must use this one in expressing yourself or in criticizing others. It is hard to say who will punish you the most for this, the dumb people who don’t know what you are talking about or the learned ones who do. But wallop you they will and you will be forced to confine yourself to pen and paper.
Then you will be a writer and may God have mercy on your soul.
No! A thousand times no! Far, far better confine yourself to a few simple expressions in life, the ones that served billions upon countless billions of our forefathers and still serve admirably all but a tiny handful of those at present clinging to the earth’s crust. Here are the only expressions you need:
‘Yeah’
‘Now’
‘Gimme de meat’
and you need at least one good bark (we all need one good bark) such as:
‘I’ll knock your back teeth down your throat!’
So forget all that has hitherto attracted you in our complicated system of grunts and go back to those fundamental ones that have stood the test of time.
With warm regards to you all,
Scott Fitz —
TO RICHARD KNIGHT
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Tow son, Maryland
September 29, 1932
Dear Dick:
That was swell praise you gave Zelda and needless to say delighted her and set her up enormously. She revised the book so much that she lost contact with it and yours is the first word that gives it public existence. My own opinions on it were as disjointed as hers.
I’m sorry I used the word fairy and that you found it offensive. I have never in my wildest imaginings supposed you were a fairy, and I admit that under similar circumstances I would be inclined probably to bristle if the word were thrown around by someone whose attitude toward me was not unchallangeable. It is a lousy word to anyone not a member of the species. I offer you my sincere apologies and put it down to the fact that I was half asleep when you came and subsequently a little tight.
However, there must have been some desire to wound in using such a word, however trivially. You annoyed me - specifically by insisting on a world which we will willingly let die, in which Zelda can’t live, which damn near ruined us both, which neither you nor any of our more gifted friends are yet sure of surviving; you insisted on its value, as if you were in some way holding a battlefront, and challenged us to join you. If you could have seen Zelda, as the most typical end-product of that battle, during any day from the spring of ‘31 to the spring of ‘32 you would have felt about as much enthusiasm for the battle as a doctor at the end of a day in a dressing station behind a blood battle.
So for the offensive and inapplicable phrase read neurotic, and take it or leave it, whatever the bulk concerned. We have a good way of living, basically, for us; we got through a lot and have some way to go; our united front is less a romance than a categorical imperative and when you criticize it in terms of a bum world, no matter how big you face it, it is annoying to me, and seems to negate on purpose both past effort and future hope and I reserve the right to be annoyed.
Of course I like you, as who wouldn’t, and appreciate your lavish generosity with yourself, and much more about you than I can express in a letter.I feel that any unpleasantness between us has all been on the basis of liking Zelda, and the sincerity of your feeling toward her shouldn’t offend anybody except the most stupid and churlish of husbands. In another year, Deus volens, she will be well. For the moment she must live in a state of Teutonic morality, far from the exploits of the ego on its own. In other words, when you city fellows come down you can’t put ideas in the heads of our farm girls, without expecting resistance.
I lay myself open to your discovery of my most blatant hypocrisies. God knows that the correctness of our life preys on such a one as old Fitzgerald, but there we are, or rather here we are. With all good wishes,
Your most obedient servant,
Scott
TO MALCOLM COWLEY
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson,Maryland
June 1, 1933
Dear Malcolm:
It was good to hear from you and we certainly enjoyed your brief visit. Dos is cured and has left to bask in the sun at Antibes and I certainly do envy him. I am working like hell.
As to using a part of my article in your book, go ahead, but I am using certain parts of it myself in my new book, in particular, parts about Antibes, so I will ask you to say, as it were, ‘Fitzgerald says’ instead of ‘Fitzgerald says in an article on the fazz Age’ because I do not want to call attention to the fact that I piece shorter things into long things though I suppose we all do. Would you mind arranging this?
Hope you manage to come back this way and let us know in advance.
Sincerely,
Scott
TO CHARLES W. DONAHOE
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson,Maryland
June 26, 1933
Dear Sap:
The rush from the house t included not only the butler, the second butler, the two footmen, the first and second trained nurse, my mother, aunt, three first c
ousins, my four children, my secretary, who is very fat and weighs 250 pounds, the illegitimate children, J. P. Morgan and myself but ten other members of my household who may perhaps not be known to you by name. I extinguished the fire myself by an act of tremendous valor. Among the objects of art saved were ‘The Last Supper,’ the bat with which Babe Ruth batted his first home run, and the baby spoon with which you presented Scottie at her birth. (Let me take this occasion to congratulate you on what the West Coast does to growing boys. I cannot see Mrs Sap’s face in the picture but gather all goes beautifully.)
Seriously, the fire was greatly overexaggerated - so was the implication that old Fitzgerald was keeping up an elaborate household. We are struggling along like everybody else though I must confess with a pretty good break so far.