Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda
Page 28
Naturally, I have had a sense of guilt about this obligation, especially during the time I was ill, as I had no possible way to pay it back. I have long toyed with the idea of letting Scottie bring Peaches out here for a two or three day glimpse of Hollywood. But expenses have been so heavy, always something unexpected, that I decided to put it off. Then recently Mrs. Finney wrote me saying that Pete wanted to take Scottie to the Bachelors’ Cotillion in Baltimore a year from this fall and I really felt that it would be churlish not to make a gesture. So I have invited Peaches to come for two days with Scottie. It will mean that Scottie can freely accept invitations to Baltimore—a form of bargaining if you want to put it that way. In any case a thing that it seemed had to be done.
This will explain the following dispensations:
Scottie gets here in mid-September—will pick up Peaches—fly out here for three days—fly back—meet you in New York about the 20th so you will have three days of her too. I wish to God I could go up to Vassar with her also but unless the situation changes here I won’t be able to get away during September.
I am writing your Mother to be sure and get herself a drawing room or section and to have her meals there. Remember the trip up will be quite a strain for her in any case, so you must insist that she do this and not try to walk though the cars on that rocky roadbed either in the morning or evening. We will pay the expenses.
I will write Rosalind, also the doctors and make all the arrangements. I think a good time for you to leave would be the night of Sunday, the 19th, and plan to arrive back a week later. You should be able to do a lot in that time and as you say it will be appropriate that you should usher Scottie into this new phase of her life.
Dearest love, always—
200. TO SCOTT
[September 1938]
ALS, 4 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Scott:
Item one, and of the most significance: Dr. Carroll agrees to the New York adventure, and we plan to leave here in time that I may accomplish
Item two: the buying of a presentable fall costume with which to greet Scottie.
Item three: May I charge to Rosalind, or will you send her money + authorization for the following
1) coat and shoes ensemble
hat + shoes
2) dinner dress
3) rain-coat
4) winter slack suit to trek these woods.
These things are indispensable. With all the good will, to be minus the necessities to meet ones most elemental social obligation, is a material incapacity that asks other ways of life than these.
Mamma is going with me—which makes me extremely happy. She will visit with Tilde, and we hope to get in some good matineés, and will be between times happily ensconced at the Irving145 as before.
I know Scottie will be a-glow from so much voyaging; and I wish we were enterring Vassar to-gether—but only vaguely.
Tennis batters these summer twilights, and the mornings fall fresh from the pines. The hardi-hood of mountain lonlinesses holds me in sway, and I begin to love the long roads leading to forgotten regretted nostalgias. The smoke smells good, and isolated figures wander off into pioneer tradition. The hill-sides bloom anyway, and nights are haunted with purpose.
If you dont get here before, Thanksgiving is a gold and august time about here with bright + wise + impervious blue skies, and grapes, warm and perfumed of a courageous sun.
Wont it be fun? Wont it be fun?
—I am most grateful about the trip; will, needless to say, be as impeccable as even Scottie could desire, and will reassure myself that life still goes on at a fitting pace—
Many thanks
Zelda
Wont you confirm by wire immediately, if you haven’t already done so, these plans?
201. TO SCOTT
[After September 19, 1938]
ALS, 8 pp., on stationery embossed HOTEL IRVING / 26 GRAMERCY PARK / EAST 20th STREET / NEW YORK at top center
Dear Scott:
New York is bliss, again. The stores are selling all sorts of aspirations to all sorts of possibilities and being here in a land of so much promise—and so many promises—is to live in a dream.
Thanks for the trip; you know I am always grateful for the happinesses you give me.
Scottie looks prettier than ever; Scottie is on the brink of being ravishing; Scottie is most gratifyingly pretty and adequate. It’s good to see her so much master of her world problems.
Item one, on my spiritual economy program:
Although Dr. Carroll requested a list of what shopping expenditures I would be making, he gave the nurse only $100 for pleasure and for clothes. I dont know that you did, but sending money for my use to that hospital is to relegate it to limbo. The[y] wont give it to me, and indeed nourish an idea that anybody ought to be content with tourists-lodgings and cafeteria meals, no tipping, and evasions of all the customary largesses which keeps functioning an agreeable and easy social order.
On that trip to Florida which Dr. Carroll sent you a bill for $200 for, he spent half an hour one morning arguing the extra 50¢ that having separate beds had cost me and the nurse. I do not believe that institution to be strictly punctilious, either spiritually or materially.
Wont you always just give them the necessary money, and to Mamma or Rosalind, the rest?
There arent any shows but the streets glitter and scintillate with memories and endeavor, and on this Sunday morning an amber beneficence sheds its light. I wish you had been able to come East— It would be fun to meet you here again. The Murphys looked very engaging; age and the ages leaves them untroubled and, perhaps, as impervious as possible. That was, indeed, a remunerative relationship—If they knew how much of other peoples orientations that they had influenced, they would less resent any challenge to their own. Which is all from the most fleeting of impressions on a crowded dock.
To Mamma, this is a fairy-land. It must be with gratitude that you remember the many happinesses which you have contributed to others.
Again, thank you.
Rosalind leaves for Atlanta on the 24th. New York will be less pleasurable to think on without her. But good that she is nearer to home.
May I go home for Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and soon for ever?
I’m so sick of the moralistic tone and repressive atmosphere of that hospital that I dont know how to endure. At my most desirable of attainments, they would have classified me at best as suspect; and any spontaneous reaction of any category therein means a week without liberty. It’s the only place I’ve ever been in my life that I impersonally hated. And I tell you again that they cannot be trusted.
We’re driving Scottie to the Obers to-day—and pray that she wont arrive a frazzled wreck. When she meets you, she will have been half around the world.
With deepest gratitude and many thanks for the flowers, and for this refurbishing of my ego.
—As soon as you yourself are under less stress, wont you see if I cant leave with a nurse? It would be cheaper, and as practical—and it is so good to be able to choose your own tooth-paste.
Zelda
202. TO SCOTT
[September 1938]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dear Scott:
New York completely ravished me as usual: clothes spoke of promise latent in a flare and a swirl, and the baubles have reached the abstract era, of almost an absolute value.
There werent any shows, and the Statue of Liberty was closed for repairs; but I went to two very compelling concerts, and tried to digest a few scaterred pictures.
We called on the Obers. Their house seemed straight out of Longfellow, or some fanciful and homely poet; dreamily spun into the fragrance of orchards and tumbled down the rocky hill-side. I never saw a more enchanting child than their lanky red-headed boy. How can we ever at least let them know our gratitude?
It was dreams,
de luxe, to lie in bed again and expostulate the morning rolls + coffee; and its always good to reassure oneself of the passage of Time. Because in these hills, the summer explodes in a froth of purple asters and the glow of an ending summer survives in the golden-rod; and Time disseminates a friendly inaccuracy—
Thank you very much; thank you once again; and thank you over and over for a most desirable vacation.
Scottie was supposed to have met me at the train; but I couldn’t find Mrs. Finneys address—
It will be good to see you
Zelda
203. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 1 p.
[Malibu Beach, California] Sept. 20th 19 38
Dear Zelda:
I am sorry things got mixed up about Scottie. Or rather I’m sorry the wind misbehaved and grounded her plane in Washington. I suppose you got information about it before you started to Newark; supposing you’d left New York at two-thirty she naturally didn’t go on but stayed in Baltimore.
She enjoyed her visit out here very much which is more than I can say. It was a great deal of strain and effort at a very busy time.
She seems to have good intentions about college but I am rather weary of her good intentions and will wait and see some results. She kept an interesting diary which I am going to have typed and send you a copy.
Hope you enjoyed New York and am looking forward to seeing you.
With love—
Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald
Highland Hospital
Asheville
North Carolina
204. TO SCOTT
[November 1938]
ALS, 4 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
Item one: I’d much much rather Scottie and I went to-gether to Alabama for Christmas—for myself, for as much time as can be arranged: for Scottie, for as long as she will stay. It’s an awfully good thing to keep her in touch with her family: I like her to know my people as well as what has been our mutual environment. I also feel rather strongly that a child who has had as much of the advantages of life as Scottie has had, should gratefully fulfill her parental obligation; and that she should not be encouraged to feel any “familial” effort a bore. If you don’t submit to this view-point, her life will eventually have become a complete subscription to material values, and there wont be any comprehension of spiritual effort and obligation. For some three years I have asked you to give us the priviledge of at least acquainting her with the temperaments that must surely have found echo in her own. It would make us very happy and anybody feels a gratification of being cared-about. However, as you know, I have always deferred to your judgment, both voluntarily and perforce. I am also well-cognizant of the efforts and responsibility that Scotties well-being has cost you and know that they are more than happily contributed.
We could have a happy time at Christmas—and why should she come here at New Year unless there isnt any other way of our being to-gether. [However, there is a very nice party here on New Years eve and I will be very grateful to have her. We could come up from Alabama together.]146
I want whatever you want to send me. I believe I’d rather have a week-end case than anything imaginable tan leather—I would also like a wrist watch—the smallest available, for outdoor use. If these cost too much, you know that I’d much rather have my trip than anything. How can I give you something for Christmas? If you want to send me a little present, send mocassins beaded all over for a 5 shoe. Nothing has given me more pleasure than the ones you gave me.
Madame Curie must be most interesting to be working on: but also difficult of dramatization[.] However, the race, under the administrations of this generation seem exceptionally interested in the wherefores of cerebral process, and I imagine that it will make a hit. Everybody wants to learn now-a-days, and are begun to realize that the deepest pleasures are those that increase the horizons. Therein lies the element of excitement + adventure, of purpose and promise, that is absent from the pleasure of distractions already familiar, i.e., from the school of a casual + mechanicly sensory pleasure upheld. Sports was their answer, and in this country there wasnt much premium on sports (too universal). Our rewards go to the experimental, dont you think?
Anyhow, Mme Curie is a significant figure + we’ve got to learn about her anyway and the movie will be a good chance to get the gold with-out the pan-handling: and I bet it will be a more than successful enterprize—
With Love
Zelda
Please do something about Christmas. Shall I wait to hear from you, or mail my presents?
Would you send me your address, I couldn’t reach you in a hurry if I had to.
205. TO SCOTT
[November 1938]
ALS, 6 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest D.O:
Before us, we have one of the most impressive institutes of learning that I have ever yearned after. Duke University is as impressive, as highly organized, as aspirational a structure as ever lost its way to the lonely, pine-peopled hill-tops of this somewhat astounding country-side. Of its social atmosphere, the university was redolent of acuteness to values of mondiale significance, and teeming with all sorts of intellectual enterprize. It is the only college I’ve ever seen that is unflavored with nostalgias, perfect in the instant, and bustling with spiritual ambitions. I don’t see why Scottie doesn’t get herself sent there; and why every-body doesn’t arrange to pass at least some of their lives in an environment presenting more of the manifestations of civilization so tangibly, and adequately at hand. One could perform experiments in how to live.
Chapel Hill is nostalgic, gracious and dreamy and haunted. It’s peeling pink façades and elegant by-ways of laurel and magnolia, and twilight sprawled over the common remind me of Ellerslie and of all sorts of good things in retrospect. I thought of you, and thanked you, and returned well-renewed in aspirations. The youth was so young, and concise, and vital and seemingly of fine ambitions stature, and seemingly competent of many possibly intricate and undeclared exigencies.
We are steeped in the regrettful lovliness of Indian summer. November moons above the road and awaits as aftermath the rising of a full and ominous moon.
Shall I wait till Christmas, or try to get home for Thanksgiving? Depending, of cource, on our financial estate.
I am painting assiduously, and so less slowly if more meticulously than heretofore and love some good morning painting hours that have accrued to me.
Otherwise, Time is a matter of expectancies, and of remembrance—try as I will to perfect the day.
However, this year is far better than last year, and has held more goodly priviledges—so I am grateful—
Devotedly
Zelda
206. TO SCOTT
[Late November 1938]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
Dr. Carroll has promised that I can go home: leaving the 19th, to stay till the 27th[.] I am deeply grateful to you; a visit will make Mamma so happy. Seeing people she loves in her house where she can dispense hospitality and happiness is, perhaps, as gratifying as anything life has to offer; and I know that she will rejoice over Christmas dinner; and my own rejoicing make resound from the Pacific slopes if my expectations are measure of my capacities. I seethe with ideas for trees: trimmed with only black + silver stars after the tone of the legends of Camelot, trimmed with only the tenor + shimmer of silver bells—trimmed with pale blue whisperings of all the other Christmas’s there ever have been. So thanks again.
Of cource, I will be grateful to have Scottie whenever and wherever you designate: it would be my greatest pleasure to have her at home.
I paint some scintillant attenuate griefs, in the nature of white carnations, and I absorb my philosophy with paramount interest—The early Greeks wrote such beautiful + compelling prose and speculated so musically
Devotedly
Zelda
Did Mr. Goldwyn eat my slippers?
207. TO SCOTT
[December 1938]
ALS, 2 pp.
[Highland Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina]
Dearest Scott:
Wont you do something about all the things? I believe I’d considerably rather the check for my Christmas presents went to Mamma: dependent upon what your intentions are concerning Scotties whereabouts. Please arrange, if its possible, that we spend at least a few days at home. Mamma will be heart-broken otherwise.
It’s cold here, and my soul grows less expansive hourly. There ought to be some procedure that could be instigated against the different weathers: its not cold anyway No matter what happens I paint, and read philosophy, and pose as a model patient but there doesnt seem to be much premium on such this year. Wont you send the book on architecture? I like accumulating vast amounts of things to which I subscribe; that I may watch them slowly fall to pieces from disuse.
Dont you think we ought to plan things? A trip to Greece, or some nice wise warm place in which to, at least, investigate the possibilities of possible happiness. Or will you advance the prospect of Bermuda at Easter? I’m doing a little spiritual gold-digging: to which I believe I am entitled considering how good I am
Meanwhile, Time hurries though the frosty mornings, and would like very much some more aggressive policy—perhaps—and Time is reluctant of comment—and Time is a happy thing to be able to get along with.
There isnt any news. How could there be? But one is not ill-disposed towards existence—its continuity + evenments.
Rosalind agrees that perhaps it wouldnt be a good plan to give Scottie a tea party at home. I still feel that it would be a very good plan however.
Devotedly,