I shall never be in
On this day in letters
Please join me in wishing a happy birthday to the following letters, all born on the sixth day of a March gone by.
Being under my own roof, and my personality not invaded by others makes a lot of difference in my outlook on life and everything. Oh, to be once more alone in a house!
Zora Neale Hurston
Letter to Jean Waterbury
6th March 1951
—A Life in Letters
I wish I could stop writing this letter—it is like an extremely long visit to the W.C. when, do what you will, fresh coils appear, and duty seems to urge you to break off, and then another inch protrudes, which must be the last; and it isn’t the last—and so on…
Virginia Woolf
Letter to Duncan Grant
6th March 1917
—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume 2
Madame, I was told that you took the trouble to come here to see me three times last evening. I was not in. And, fearing lest persistence expose you to humiliation, I am bound by the rules of politeness to warn you that I shall never be in.
Gustave Flaubert
Letter to Louise Colet
6th March 1866
—The Letters of Gustave Flaubert
I hope you’re angry but get it over with fast and use it while you’ve got it. I hope you don’t stop being angry now and then until things are better for all women, not just artists; I hope you’re working from yourself and know how to fuck the art world pressures when you get out there; and I hope you’re working for everybody else too; I hope you’ll be the one to figure out a way to keep art from being used the wrong way and for the wrong things in society; I hope you make your art accessible to more people, to all women and to everybody; I hope you think about that now and aren’t waiting till you make it, because that’s likely to be too late. I hope you remember that being a feminist carries with it a real responsibility to be human. I hope and I hope and I hope.
Lucy Lippard
Letter to a young artist
6th March 1974
—Letters of Note: Art
It was windy, rainy and wild at first, but all of a sudden, today, not a cloud in the sky and masses of blackbirds as if someone had rashly opened a pie.
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Letter to Deborah Devonshire
6th March 2002
—In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor
Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Letter to Arthur Ficke
6th March 1913
—Into the World’s Great Heart: Selected Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay
The more years that pass, the more I believe in the omnipotence of the human soul—the soul of the true human being. Whoever cannot fashion his own fate is not a true human being. I do not believe that there is any obstacle that cannot be transubstantiated into an instrument of victory.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Letter to Pandelis Prevelakis
6th March 1952
—The Selected Letters of Nikos Kazantzakis
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Thank you!
To Zora Neale Hurston, girl I feel you!
Gustave Flaubert Letter to Louise Colet just perfect lol thank you for the good belly chuckle