Below, after a night of long drinking, Ernest Hemingway attempts to assuage F. Scott Fitzgerald’s concerns regarding a perceived slight from Gertrude Stein.
TO F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
October 24, Paris, 1929
Dear Scott:
Your note just came and am utilizing a good hangover to answer it.
I was not annoyed at anything you said (You surely know by now, I’ve written it often enough, how much I admire your work). I was only annoyed at your refusal to accept the sincere compliment G. Stein was making to you and instead try and twist it into a slighting remark. She was praising her head off about you to me when you came up she started to repeat it and then at the end of the praise to spare you blushes and not be rude to me she said that our flames (sic) were maybe not the same—then you brood on that—
It is O.K. to not accept the compliments if you don’t wish (most compliments are horseshit) but there is no need for me to have to re-iterate that they were compliments not slights. I cross myself and swear to God that Gertrude Stein has never last night or any other time said anything to me about you but the highest praise. That is absolutely true. The fact that you do not value or accept it does not make it any less sincere.
As for the comparison of our writings she was doing nothing of the kind—only saying that you had a hell of a roaring furnace of talent and I had a small one—implying I had to work a damn sight harder for results obtained—then to avoid praising you to your face and pooping on me she said she wasnt saying the flame was of the same quality. If you would have pressed her she would have told you to a direct question that she believes yours a better quality than mine.
Naturally I do not agree with that—any more than you would—any comparison of such a non existent thing as hypothetical “flames” being pure horseshit—and any comparison between you and me being tripe too—We started along entirely separate lines—would never have met except by accident and as writers have nothing in common except the desire to write well. So why make comparisons and talk about superiority—if you have to have feelings of superiority to me well and good as long as I do not have to have feelings of either superiority or inferiority to you—There can be no such thing between serious writers—They are all in the same boat. Competition within that boat—which is headed toward death—is as silly as deck sports are—The only competition is the original one of making the boat but you’re getting touchy because you haven’t finished your novel—that’s all—I understand it and you could be a hell of a lot more touchy and I wouldn’t mind.
This is all a bloody rot to write in bed with a bad stomach and if you succeed in finding any slurs slights depreciations or insults in it the morning has been wasted (It’s wasted anyway). Gertrude wanted to organize a hare and tortoise race and picked me to tortoise and you to hare and naturally, like a modest man and a classicist, you wanted to be the tortoise—all right tortoise all you want—It’s all tripe anyway—
I like to have Gertrude bawl me out because it keeps one[’s] opinion of oneself down—way down—She liked the book very much she said—But what I wanted to hear about was what she didn’t like and why—She thinks the parts that fail are where I remember visually rather than make up—That was nothing very new—I expected to hear it was all tripe—Would prefer to hear that because it is such a swell spur to work.
Anyway here is page 4 [of this letter]—Will enclose Max’s letter—
I’m damn sorry Bromfield started that rumor but it can’t hurt Scribners when I nail it by staying with them—I’d be glad to write him a letter he could publish if he wanted—
Look what tripe everything is—In plain talk I learned to write from you—In Town and Country from Joyce – in Chic Trib from Gertrude—not yet reported and the authorities on Dos Passos, Pound, Homer, Mc Almon, Aldous Huxley and E. E. Cummings—Then you think I shouldn’t worry when some one says I’ve no vitality—I don’t worry—Who has vitality in Paris? People dont write with vitality—they write with their heads—When I’m in perfect shape and don’t feel like writing—feel too good! G. S. never went with us to Schruns or Key West or Wyoming or any place where you get in shape—If she’s never seen me in shape—Why worry? When they bawl you out ride with the punches—
Anyway will write no more of this—I’m sorry you worried – you weren’t unpleasant.
Yours always affectionately,
Ernest
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