14 January (1856): Henrik Ibsen to Susanna Thoresen
And the ladies smile demurely
As memory’s album receives
Speeches, fiery and tender,
Not speakers nor hearer believes.
Staff
13 January (1921): Eugene O’Neill to John V. A. Weaver
At any rate, the results of my last two relaxings have been so venomous that I have taken the holy New Year oath to remain henceforth on the wagon, N.Y. or no N.Y., as long as I am in the U.S., so help me Wheeler!
12 January (1940): Henry Miller to Anaïs Nin
Not only does one feel integrated, harmonious, at one with all life, but—one is silenced. That is perhaps the highest experience I know of. It is a death, but a death which puts life to shame. And now, on the boat, in the midst of the American scene, I feel as though I am living with people who are not yet born, with monsters who escaped from the womb before their time.
9 January (1996): Saul Bellow to Albert Glotzer
He’s getting ready to publish a collection of recently released Lenin documents from the early years—1917 to 1923. I wish you had been here when he described some of them. One is an order to find and hang a hundred Kulaks. Just hang them, his instructions were, and leave them hanging as long as possible.
8 January (1954): Joy Davidman to William Lindsay Gresham
I got talking with Bill Temple and another guy, and what do you suppose they were gnashing their teeth about? The awfulness of being a married writer with wives and kids who don’t understand that Daddy’s writing is important!
7 January (1942): Eudora Welty to Diarmuid Russell
There is a maniac here (really a surgeon) with a yard full of bushes which he erects canvas tents over and heats all night by gas heaters inside, one each—an ideal place for drawing tramps, I should think, and I am a little envious of tramps that could come in out of the cold to a nice warm tent and a stove to heat coffee over and a Pink Perfection to curl up under for the evening, imagine waking up and finding that you’re in bloom…
6 January (1935): Bertolt Brecht to Bernard von Brentano
I share your doubts as to the validity of opinions professed by persons who without said opinions would suffer material loss. But you will agree with me that such opinions may nevertheless be sound. Sound as well as unsound opinions can be bought.
5 January (1953): Sylvia Plath to Aurelia and Otto Plath
BRINGING FABULOUS FRACTURED FIBULA NO PAIN JUST TRICKY TO MANIPULATE WHILE CHARLESTONING. ANYTHING TO PROLONG VACATION.
2 January (1941): Edna St. Vincent Millay to Charlotte Babcock Sills
You see by the dates on the poems in this book that they were written in a furious haste and published as soon as they were written. They are, with a few exceptions, considered as poetry, faulty and unpolished; and whatever the final verdict of our generation or the next may be upon me as a poet, there are already, I know quite well, thousands of people, true lovers of pure poetry, and who have—for I am humbly proud of this and feel no arrogance in saying so—in past years thought very highly of mine, who will, no matter what I may write in the future, never forgive me for writing this book.
1 January (1842): Søren Kierkegaard to Emil Boesen
If you have anything to say, please write, for you are and always will remain the only person who has a seat and a vote in the council of my many and various thoughts. Write vigorously—and legibly—and quickly—