by Sylvia Plath
Tuesday morning: Nov. 13
Dearest mother . . .
It was so lovely to get your sunny letter; first of all, congratulate Warren a million time for being Phi Bete; I’m so proud. I am rather blue today, all the meanness of fate falling on me over the weekend in the form of a nasty sinus cold, a very painful “slipped disc” in my back which, since saturday, has gotten better so rapidly that ted & I think it must have been only a muscle or something (we had it x-rayed) but it was an unpleasant shock---I sneezed violently saturday just as we were setting out to cover poppy day festivities here,* & fell to the floor in violent crippling pain; rest has improved it much, though: also, two rejections of poems and stories from the distainful New Yorker. If people only knew the miseries one goes through & the discouragements they would realize how much balances out the small successes. The Monitor sent me no letter accepting my drawings & article, only a check, which I find strange; I didn’t even know they’d come out until you wrote me, and am eager to see them. Ted & I tried a new ouija character “G. A.” last night who claimed to be able to predict the football pools (a fortune of £75,000 is given away each week to the winner!) I hope this one is more responsible than Jumbo.
I must say I am eager to get to America and Ted & I can certainly do with a few parties & presents---the next two months will be very hard, having to pay bills at both Newnham & the 55 Eltisley Avenue place. Ted has not as yet got a job---he probably can get teaching jobs In January, the start of the new term, but it is very difficult now; he may have to take a laboring job for these first months to cover coal, electricity, gas & food bills.
We have bought a huge rather soiled but comfortable second-hand sofa for our livingroom for £9. 10s. which we’ll sell again next spring, and a can of paint for the dirty yellow walls; how I long to get away from the dirt here; everything is so old and dirty; soot of centuries worked into every pore. But I managed to turn out, by utter luck, a delicious roast beef dinner in our strange gas oven, our first dinner there: rare (!) roast beef, buttery mashed potatoes, peas, raspberries & cream; I’ll be glad to move there on Dec. 7 (that’s Friday; is that our official wedding date, not Saturday?) & forgo this split existence.
This Saturday, by the way, the official council at Newnham met & decided I could go on working here; they had told me not to worry, but the ingrained English maxim that a woman cannot cook and think at the same time had me dubious enough. So my Fulbright continues, & I continue. The difficult person will be Mary Ellen Chase. I’m writing her soon, & will say I’m married, but when she comes over here this winter, she’ll find from Newnham I was married in June. Better not send out engraved invitations. Do make a newspaper announcement, though.* And tell everybody in Xmas letters, as I will do.
I’d love vitamins; I’m convinced everything the British sell is without any nourishment whatsoever. And could you send more 3cent stamps? I’m almost out. Very very slowly Ted is getting noticed here---his poems; the stupid magazines still haven’t printed any, but critic G. S. Fraser* wishes he’d had some for his recent anthology of young poets & wishes to see more; he also got a letter, after a friend read aloud some of his poems in a London poetry circle, which rather shocked me. A young Australian,* on hearing Ted’s poem “The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar” read (the one the BBC recorded) wrote to ask if Ted felt strongly enough about martyrs to join him in Baron Hudja’s guerilla forces in the mountains of Hungary;* thank God Ted would rather make a creative life here than sacrifice himself there; I am sure a hidden death-wish and desire to fight for a noble Cause motivates the young men who go there; it is tragic enough.
Tell anyone-who-wants-to-send-me-gifts of a bulky or house-furnishing nature to send them to 26-Elmwood. Personal gifts might come here, if any, like clothes. But I want to have some nice things waiting when I come home; I’ve given up all the ceremony & presents belonging to a new bride, and would like to feel we’d have it easy for once in the near future in America. I am sick of battling the cold and the dirt away from all my friends. America looks to me like the promised land; as long as we can stay out of the appalling competitive, comercial race I’ll be happy; I’d like New England teaching & writing years & leisurely Cape summers. Do tell Mrs. Prouty Ted has got a poem in the Atlantic too. I love that woman so, & look so forward to bringing Ted to meet her.
If I sound a little morose, it is only this sinus cold which I have to wait out, which makes me more sensitive to rejections. Ted brings food to cook here, like a darling, and is loving and considerate in every way. I cant believe it is only seven months till I come home! I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Can’t wait till this vacation when I can write in peace & catch up on all my reading. Give my love to everybody . . . and write a lot . . .
Love from
Sivvy
PS. Why don’t you call on Sunday Dec. 9th? We’ll be in our new house then & would love to hear your voices there, to bless it. Tell dear Betty & Duane* what a lovely idea it is! Our 55 ETISley Ave. number: TEL: CAMBRIDGE 54589.
TO Edward Weeks*
Tuesday 13 November 1956
TLS (photocopy), Yale University
Whitstead
4 Barton Road
Cambridge, England
November 13, 1956
Editor Edward Weeks
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
8 Arlington Street
Boston 16, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
Dear Editor Weeks,
I am enclosing three stories among which I hope you may find something suitable for publication in the Atlantic--“That Widow Mangada”,* “The Black Bull”,* and “Afternoon in Hardcastle Crags.”* I’ve had stories published previously in Seventeen and Mademoiselle magazines.
Thanking you for your time and consideration, I am
Sincerely yours,
Sylvia Plath
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 21 November 1956
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Wednesday: November 21
Dearest mother . . .
How I look forward to your letters; your calm voice and kind advice really heartens me. I am, comparitively, feeling magnificent this week, although grimly plodding through an incredible mountain of reading---Hume, JSMill Chaucer & all the medieval poets (it appears) for Moralist papers* & a great Chaucer paper* by the Dec. 7th end of term. My cold is gone (poor Ted caught it, & I went over to tend him & cook last weekend) & my back seems fine. The next 2½ weeks I am prepared to trudge through all the academic obligations that have piled up in this term of interviews re marriage, & colds. On Dec. 7th a new life will begin, looking like utter heaven compared to this split one; I study here at Whitstead, rather than the new flat, because there I’m too distracted by wanting to paint the floor & the kitchen & make a big bookcase out of wood & bricks: we’re postponing this till vacation. Oddly enough, under all this pressure, I’ve written several very good poems* & the more I write, the better. Yesterday I devoted to typing Ted’s first book of poems (which makes the one we sent off last spring look like juvenalia): 40 magnificent poems, 51 pages (6 poems out of that already accepted 2 each by Poetry* & The Nation;* 1 Atlantic, 1 BBC). We’re submitting it for a November deadline for a first-book-of-poems contest run by Harper’s publishing company; Marianne Moore,* Stephen Spender* & WH Auden* will judge. I don’t see how they can help but accept this it’s the most rich, powerful work since Yeats & Dylan Thomas.* My own book of poems (now titled “Two Lovers & A Beachcomber”) grows well & I should have 50 good poems by the time I submit it to the Yale Series of Younger Poets in February.
Item: Do write “married recently” in our marriage announcement & say after Dec. 7 “the couple will be at home at 55 Eltisley Avenue, Cambridge, England.” I’d rather not even have a politic untruth in print about the date. I received today the most beautiful nightgown from Mrs. Cantor I just cried out with joy---all frothy and pinky and lace, like a rosy snowflake at this bleak time. Give her my most enthusiastic thanks. Te
ll all these good people I’ll write them in a Christmas letter after Dec. 7 but just can’t manage a line even right now.
Good news: Ted has, by the same miracle that got us a flat the day we wanted it at an impossible time of year, got a job starting this very Monday! He is too late for getting a Cambridge teaching diploma, and, as the work & people are very stuffy in that program, I’m just as glad. He’ll be teaching from now till June at a day-school in Cambridge* for teen-age boys; not smart, but very dumb. He will officially be teaching English, but also helping in athletics & drama productions & everything in general; the master told him a touching story about how these boys, ignorant, marking time till they get trade jobs, can be “shocked” into awareness that might make life a little richer for them: once the master was talking about “treasure”, & took out the things in his pocket, among them a colored pebble he’d picked up on a beach; that was, he said, treasure: he could, by looking at the pebble, recall the sun, the sea, the whole day. He told the boys to bring a “treasure” to class the next day; among them, one boy brought a fossil. The master sent him over to the nature lab to learn about it & in no time the boy had taught himself to read (some can’t even do that!) & soon had the best fossil collection in Cambridge.
The master said Ted can use any methods he wants in teaching, no matter how unconventional; the main thing is energy & enthusiasm: the boys will like what he likes. Ted is very happy about this as it has been a difficult time for both of us with no money coming in & the double expenses of Newnham & the new flat this December; too, the job is just what he’ll be terrific at. We’ll manage all right, now, I’m sure of it; as soon as he starts drawing a regular salary, the acceptances will begin coming in! (The ship fare for him is about £70, & the visa expenses £9). Thanks for the money; & we’ll have a good picture taken this vacation, you may be sure!
We’ll expect your call eagerly at 8 pm our time on December 9th Sunday. How exciting it will be; do try to have Warren there!
Your dinners sound incredibly delectable; how happy I will be at 55 Eltisley to start something more ambitious than this quick frying of steak or pork with peas. We shall eat in style. Olwyn, Ted’s sister, stopped by this weekend on her way from a stay at home to her job in Paris; she is 28, and very startlingly beautiful with amber-gold hair & eyes; I cooked a big roast beef dinner with red wine & strawberries & cream. She reminds me of a changeling, somehow, who will never get old; she is however, quite selfish, & squanders money on herself continually, in extravagances of clothes & cigarettes, while she still owes Ted £50. But in spite of this, I do like her. Do send me some recipes as soon as you can for apple cake, tollhouse & oatmeal cookies, fish & corn chowder; I’d love some Flako piecrust mix, corn muffin mix & chocolate bits for cookies; I am dying to bake for Ted. Keep writing me morale-building letters up till Dec. 7th! I’ll need them.
Much much love to you & Warrie---your own sivvy
PS: Urgent: Can I send Ted’s dollar checks from the Nation, Atlantic Monthly, etc. to you to deposit to my account in Wellesley if he signs them: “Deposit to the account of Sylvia Plath” & signs them? We want to build up a dollar fund to greet us on our return!
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 29 November 1956
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Thursday morning, Nov. 29
Dearest mother . . .
I have no idea how long its been since I last wrote home, but I hope you’ll understand that work has piled up enormously and that maybe you’ll tell people they’ll hear from me after Dec. 7th when we’re settled in our new house---do thank Mrs. Cantor for the beautiful nightgown! It seems I’m always making requests---could you please send back our original marriage license as soon as you can---we have to have it, along with hundreds of other triplicated documents to turn in for Ted’s visa---the most complicated form I’ve seen yet. Also, I’d appreciate it so much if you’d also put my wedding announcement in the NYTimes---all my old friends read that, and no other paper, so I’d like to have it there, since I’m not sending out invitations. News that I am already married will no doubt leak out anyway, so I’m glad you’re putting “recently.” Dick Baugham*---I don’t know if you remember him, but he was a few years behind me, at the Unitarian church, Amherst, med. school, etc., & is now over here---came up to see Ted & me & said he’d just read the Townsman announcement of my engagement* & here I was married. That sort of thing. I dont think it really matters too much, though.
I am going through a very trying time just now which is why I haven’t written---from those gruelling two weeks of interviews about my marriage and being down with a sinus cold & slipped disk, work has piled up so hugely that it seems I have to read all of medieval poetry & write a long paper, plus do my weekly philosophy essays all before December 7th. There have been times where I’ve felt terribly tired---if I can just plod to that glorious day, my whole life will come together & I can work through my blessed 5 weeks vacation at leisure---(but right now it seems as if I’ll never be free of this weight of back-work). All demands have come at the same time---I have to prohibit myself from going over to our flat on 55 Eltisley Avenue because I want so much to fix up the hideous kitchen, which we will paint all light blue & fix the scabrous ceiling. I have not been able to resist doing work on the living room with dear Ted: I wish you could see it! It has dark brown woodwork, & Ted painted the walls a heavenly shade of light blue; he painted the floors black (which I scrubbed) & we bought four beautiful 6 foot 6 boards and Ted sawed them to fit our homemade “built-in” bookcase---I painted 40 firebricks to hold up the bookcase light blue to match the wall, and we are both awed by the beauty of our room now, with my Braque over the mantel, & our big comfortable 2nd hand sofa, & the color-combination is dark brown, light blue with cheerful bright yellow accents on pillows & lampshades. You see my dilemma---I’m just dying to fix up the house & take care of my wonderful Ted, who has been going to his job all week, but I must fight my homemaking instinct & work for another gruelling week without stop. Then I will get a van to move my heavy stuff Friday, and we will go out to Miller’s for a luxurious celebrating dinner with white wine & smoked salmon & partridge and at last begin our life together which we have been fighting for for so long. We looked back on the last six months as a kind of marathon---really no rest & peace in our own place except for a few weeks in Spain, which was complicated by worry about money, jobs, separation, etc. I feel we have had every disadvantage at the start---no money coming in, no jobs, and a large load of uncertainty; I think we deserve every bit of good fortune we get from now on---we work so hard all the time; but just being with Ted is a blessed relaxation & peace for me, no matter what I’m doing.
I am so proud of Ted. He has just walked into this job and the boys evidently are just fascinated by him; he says he terrifies them, and then is nice, & with his natural sense of the dramatic, can interest them & have them eating out of his hand; he brings home their compositions & exams to correct & reads them aloud to me---I get such a touching picture of those individual simple little minds. Ted says they loved some ballads by WH Auden he read them, yelled for him to do them over, & then he told them to write 8 lines of a story-ballad; they did, & very enthusiastically---and these are all candidates for juvenile delinquents. Ted teaches math, social studies, english, dramatics, art & just everything---on a very simple level, of course, but thus even more demanding for a brilliant intellect like his; he seems very happy about the job, & will get paid over vacation etc. You should see him---he gets books on Russian history, on the Jews, on the Nazis out of the library---the boys are very interested in these topics, & Ted can just absorb knowledge in no time. I am convinced he is a genius. We have such lovely hours together; I just long to be over in our own house, cooking & keeping it in order for him & packing delicious lunches for him. We read, discuss poems we discover, talk, analyze---we continually fascinate each other. It is heaven to have someone like Ted
who is so kind, & honest, & brilliant & always stimulating me to study, think, draw & write--he is better than any teacher, even fills somehow that huge sad hole I felt having no father--I feel every day how wonderful he is and love him more and more. My whole life has suddenly a purpose; I really am convinced he is the only person in the world I could ever love; my demands are so high---for health, brilliance, creativity, faithfulness---all those qualities that seldom, if ever, go together & he has all & much more. We look so forward to hearing from you on Dec. 9th at 8 pm our time.
Much, much love – your own sivvy
PS: am sending / $32. of checks under separate cover.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 29 November 1956*
TLS, Indiana University
Thursday, also
Dearest mother . . .
Enclosed please find $32 in the form of three checks to deposit to my account, which I’ll change to a joint account when we come over. I just sent off Ted’s book of poems to the contest this week, to be judged by WH Auden, Stephen Spender & Marianne Moore---all of whom, ironically, I’ve met at one time or another. If they don’t pick Ted’s book to be published they are all crazy. It is 51 pages of vital, disciplined, brilliant, rich poetry.
I was most moved by your account of Steve Clark,* & couldn’t resist putting a letter in with this about him. I suddenly “felt myself into” his state where he must feel, as I felt, only a little over three years ago, that there is no way out for him scholastically. I wish you could somehow concentrate on him--have him over alone for a weekend, get him to talk, break down whatever sick reserve & terror he has & even get him to let go and cry. If you think you can, use me as an example. I’m sure he thinks that even though I went to a mental hospital, I never had any trouble about marks. Well, tell him I went through 6 months where I literally couldn’t read, felt I couldn’t take courses at Smith, even the regular program, because of my badly planned course-program, and felt I wouldn’t be admitted to a place like B.U. because, paradoxically, they demanded more set subject requirements, which I just didn’t have. Tell him I went back without a scholarship for my half year. I know only too well how it is to have nothing anybody says help. I would have felt almost better if people had not tried to be optimistic when I honestly believed there was no hope of studying & thinking; I am sure he is not that badly off. Find out what his marks are. Is he in danger of failing? If not, tell him that (even in our competitive American society) while marks may get scholarships, people are judged by very different standards in life; if he tries to enjoy his studies (I assume he is now taking some courses he likes), he will be enriched throughout life; try to give him a life-perspective: to walk out in nature maybe & show him the trees are the same through all the sorrowful people who have passed under them, that the stars remain, and that, as you once wrote me, he must not let fear of marks blind him to the one real requirement of life: an openness to what is lovely, among all the rest that isn’t. Get him to go easy on himself; show him that people will love & respect him without ever asking what marks he has gotten. I remember I was terrified that if I wasn’t successful writing that no one would find me interesting or valuable.