It seemed a romantic business to be a successful literary man-you were not ever going to be as famous as a movie star but what note you had was probably longer-lived you were never going to have the power of a man of strong political or religious convictions but you were certainly more independent. Life yielded easily to intelligence and effort, or to what proportion could be mustered of both. Life was something you dominated if you were any good. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick-the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.īefore I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation-the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. There is another sort of blow that comes from within-that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work-the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside-the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. You can find every Esquire story ever published at Esquire Classic.
Available in full, below, it contains an outdated and potentially offensive description of race. Scott Fitzgerald's lauded reflection on fame and addiction first published as a three-part series in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Esquire.
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