You have made me unhappy
On this day in letters
The following letters of note have one thing in common1: all were written on the tenth day of an April gone by.
You have made me unhappy.
I bought your “Metamorphosis” as a gift for my cousin, but she doesn’t know what to make of the story. My cousin gave it to her mother, who doesn’t know what to make of it either. Her mother gave the book to my other cousin, and she doesn't know what to make of it either. Now they have written to me. They want me to explain the story to them because I am the one with a doctorate in the family. But I am baffled.
Sir! I have spent months in the trenches fighting the Russians without flinching, but if my reputation among my cousins went to Hell, I would not be able to bear it.
Only you can help me. You have to, because you are the one who landed me in this situation. So please tell me what my cousin ought to make of “The Metamorphosis.”
Dr. Siegfried Wolff
Letter to Franz Kafka
10th April 1917
(From Kafka: The Years of Insight, by Reiner Stach)
No, you may not send us your verses, and we will not give you the name of another publisher. We hate no rival publisher sufficiently to ask you to inflict them on him. The specimen poem is simply awful. In fact, we have never seen worse.
Angus & Robertson Ltd.
Rejection letter to F. C. Meyer2
10th April 1928
Today, for the first time, I went to a good Friday service in the Cathedral. The Bishop said these words, during one of the prayers: ‘Oh Lord, deliver us from a cheap melancholy.’ I find that a lovely combination: and it means something. But between the cup and the lip as they do say, there is only air.
Martha Gellhorn
Letter to Hortense Flexner
10th April 1935
(From Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn, by Caroline Moorehead)
I opened the drawer of my little desk to get some money and a single letter fell out: it was a letter from my mother, one of her last, written in pencil with unfinished words and already suffused with her departure.
How strange: one can successfully resist tears and “hold” oneself very well in the hardest hours. But then, someone makes a friendly gesture behind a window, one notices a blossom which was just a bud yesterday—or a letter slips from a drawer—and everything falls apart.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Letter to Marguerite Moreno
10th April 1923
(From Letters of Note: Grief)
While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.
Clyde Barrow3
Letter to Henry Ford
10th April 1934
(From Letters of Note)
Boris (Johnson) really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies. It is a question of priorities, which most of his colleagues have no difficulty in sorting out. Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for the next half). I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.
Martin Hammond, Eton College
Letter to Boris’ father, Stanley Johnson
10th April 1982
(From Boris: The Adventures of Boris Johnson, by Andrew Gimson)
I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather.
Here are some obvious things about the weather:
It’s real.
You can’t change it by wishing it away.
If it’s dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can’t alter it.
But nor is it your fault that it’s dark and rainy, and it might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.BUT
It will be sunny one day.
It isn’t under one’s control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.It really is the same with one’s moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness—these are as real as the weather—AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE’S CONTROL. No one’s fault. Not yours.
BUT
They will pass: they really will.
In the same way that one has to accept the weather, so one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes. “Today's a crap day,” is a perfectly realistic approach. It’s all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. “Hey-ho, it’s raining inside: it isn’t my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage.”
Stephen Fry4
Letter to a young fan, Crystal
10th April 2006
(Courtesy of Crystal, with thanks to Stephen Fry)
On December 8, 1980 I shot and killed John Lennon. Before this, earlier in the afternoon, I had asked him to sign his Double Fantasy album. He did this also signing the date: 1980. I then placed this album behind the security guard’s booth where it was found after my arrest. I have tried unsuccessfully for years (and 2 attorneys) to get this item back, seeking to place it at auction and donating the money to a children’s charity. I felt it was the least I could do. Now, is there any way to assess the value of an item such as this? I have often wanted to write a dealer (Charles Hamilton comes to mind) concerning this but haven’t. I guess listening to you convinced me I could trust you – I’m somewhat of a recluse.
Is there a value that could be assigned to an item like this? Is this something that could only be determined at auction? Please let me know your feelings on this.
Mark Chapman5
Letter to a memorabilia expert
10th April 1986
(From Letters of Note)
That’s not to say they aren’t connected in other ways, too. They very well may be. But you get the idea.
Meyer didn’t give up. His poetry was eventually published.
Clyde Barrow was one half of Bonnie and Clyde, a murderous pair whose high-speed getaways in stolen cars turned them into infamous legends of the early 1930s.
Mark Chapman remains imprisoned for the murder of John Lennon, and in March of this year was denied parole for the thirteenth time. The copy of Double Fantasy signed by Lennon that day sold at auction in 2020 for $1.5million.
Letters are so immediate. The time gap between the writer and us simply vanishes, or at least that's how I feel. Thanks for these!
Your selection of letters are by far one of the best things I read on my phone - that's not a hard competition to win, but take it as compliment! Thank you for sharing them!