Honestly, Gordon, there is so much to talk to you about that can never get across in letters, no matter how fast my fingers fly to catch up with ideas! I really look immensely forward to being with you and would enjoy traveling with you very much. As yet, I am not sure if I will get a Fulbright renewal or not (they have a strict policy against renewals, as they want “as many” as possible to come abroad, and only give about 20 out of 200 applicants in the U.K. I won’t hear till mid-April, although I do know that my application has passed the first round. I am staying to get my degree next June, no matter what, but would be glad to get this yearly financial uncertainty over with. As it is, I have to rack my brains to think of illegal ways to change my morally un-changeable pounds into foreign currency so I can go abroad in vacations and live on the grant then, too, which really pulls it thin). As a matter of fact, just letting myself think of seeing you makes me feel like bursting out with so much: thoughts, feelings, concerns, etc.
Ironically enough, I am intensely happy here and simply can’t imagine coming home again until I have made certain decisions. I love the excitement of living on the edge of the continent, with the nearness of tense political frontiers, different languages and countries, all available in a few day’s journey. I would give anything to get a grant to write abroad or a job reporting, all of which is no doubt pipe-dreaming, but I am rather tired of the slow, theoretical backwater of the academic community (which I would no doubt hunger for if I’d been away as long as you have) and long to Earn Money and write and Support Myself. I suppose I sometimes forget how good I have it, and am “supporting” myself through my classes & papers, reading dozens more books than I’d have a chance to if I worked, and having brief and intense tries at writing: which always goes better if compressed in a short space. Then, too, I’m having a wonderful chance at traveling on the continent, taking advantage of Paris, etc. off-season, and planning to try the more remote and unfrequented (by tourist) places in the long three-month summer.
Best news yet for me is that Sue Weller has a Marshall Fellowship to Oxford next year. I miss her terribly, as she was the best friend and confidante I’ve ever had and an ideal person to live & travel with, as we balance each other very well, temperamentally & intellectually. Could you, by the way, possibly get a pass to either Austria or Italy or both? I haven’t decided definitely where I’ll be the free week before you come, but think it will probably be Italy. We can decide as the Time draws near just where and when we should meet, depending on where your business takes you and where I am at the moment. Do write. I am so eager to see you again, and explore a bit of Europe with you, and talk and talk.
Love from Gardencourt,
Sylvia
TO Jon K. Rosenthal
Sunday 19 February 1956
TLS (picture postcard, photocopy),
Smith College
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