by Sylvia Plath
Get him to see that he must like his work for itself first; let him work, but tell him to force himself, every time he does a paper or exam, to think: whatever mark I may get, I liked this, and that; I have discovered such and such; I am that much richer whatever the examiners may think. Marks have no doubt become the black juggernaut of his life; do not try to be over-optimistic, because that will only make him lose trust in you. Take him aside, agree with him about the problem; even if it is dark. Start from the bottom; if he is not failing, tell him how good that is. If he likes any subject, tell him how important that is. If he gets despairing or frantic & thinks he can’t work or think, give him some ritual phrase to repeat sternly to himself: let him be gentle in his demands; tell himself he has as much right to work and be at Harvard as anyone. If he is worried about money, tell him a job on the Cape can help earn much. If he can manage it, tell him to work part-time, and study over the summer at more leisure. Tell him he can always re-apply for scholarship; that personality & character-references matter as much as marks. Even if he goes to a med school with lower reputation, He can be a fine doctor. I know med-student bar-tenders on the cape who earn up to $1000 a summer.
Above all, don’t try to be rosy; start from what he thinks is the situation, no matter how black; show him how much worse it could be; use me as an example---I thought no university would ever accept someone who couldn’t read, who hadn’t had the requisite courses; I thought my life was ruined because no one would employ a girl without a university degree. Now, if he is not failing, surely he will get a degree. That is of first importance.
Tell him, if you think it will help, that you wrote me he was concerned about marks, and that I only want to share some of my own experience with him; that I thought and fully believed for almost a year that that my case was utterly hopeless; tell him (if he says---oh, she has a Fulbright & always got good marks) that I had to go back without a scholarship to Smith & took only 3 courses, because I was afraid I couldn’t even read for them. He surely must be better off than I was! Do ask him out alone & talk straight out with him. It is better he should break down & cry, if he has to. I think psychiatrists are often too busy to devote the right sort of care to this; they so seldom have time to get in deep & blither about father & mother relationships when some common sense stern advice about practical things & simple human intuition can accomplish much. I am sure you could help Steve, and I only wish I was there to take over for a time. Don’t let him go around trying to cover what he thinks is a black pit of failure in himself; get him to talk it out, to say how black it is; agree where it seems close to true (marks are very important to scholarships etc. don’t minimize this). He will trust you if you treat his problems as real ones. The thing to do, if possible, is to make him understand that his love of his work is what matters to him, no matter what the examiners say. If he can have joy in his work, instead of having it go bitter because he is manipulating it for marks & not getting them, that will be good. Let him go slowly, step by step. First to like his work for itself no matter how many relapses he has to fearing bad marks. When he dies, his marks will not be written on his gravestone; if he has loved a book, been kind to someone, enjoyed a certain color in the sea; that is the thing that will show whether he has lived.
He probably feels something like a hypocrite, as I did---that he is not worth the money & faith his parents have put in him, and that more & more this will be revealed (by things like losing his scholarship). Show him how much chance he still has---is he a sophomore or junior? Help advise his summer plans. But don’t be rosy; be tough & practical; get him to be happy with a minimum---what he now has; show him the various ways he can work himself up from there. Do invite him over. And tell me more details about him. I wish you would sort of give him as much time & energy as you can through this time – adopt him for my sake & (like the Cantors did) have him over, show you love him & demand nothing of him but the least he can give.
xx
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 4 December 1956
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Tuesday, December 4,
Dearest mother . . .
What a miraculous creature you are! As if it weren’t enough to drive a car, jaunt about Europe in the summer, you now are conquering TV! I am so proud; you will do much better before the camera than ever I would have done, with your poise & ease from teaching. I am overjoyed that dear Mr. Crockett* is getting public tribute. It is rare people like him who influence, very deeply, the whole course and spirit of people’s lives. I shall write a few inadequate lines towards the end of this. I feel very humble; he is really saintlike.
You were darling to send the recipes and the stamps. I only hope the packages won’t take all your energy & money! Ted & I are just gritting our teeth until this week is over; I have a paper to write this morning,* then another cram of reading & paper to write thursday; Friday I’ll call a moving van. Saturday night we’re going for a celebrating dinner to Miller’s for duck (where we went with dear Betty & Duane that time). We’ll be home all Sunday, eager to hear from you at 8. I just got my SAILING DATE confirmed! We leave England on the Queen Elizabeth June 20th, the day my Fulbright ends! So we should be in NYC about June 25th. I never thought I would be so overjoyed about anything; to see the blessed Statue of Liberty & the lovely rock-crystal towers of Manhattan side by side with Ted is my favorite dream now. The fare is phenomenal---£72 for Ted; we’ll try to pay the £15 deposit this month; but it will be a long haul; the visa costs £9, and our year was really knocked by the £22 dentist bill & the £ 46 tailor’s bill for Ted---both necessities in their own way. However, we still have about $100 due for our poems, so we’ll cash it here. Ted will be earning a regular salary now each week & my Fulbright, after January, will be free to use for our rent & food expenses.
Of course, while I am cramming this week, I am distracted by dozens of practical thoughts and plans. I really think it would be inadvisable, after all, to spend my first year teaching at Smith, even if they did ask me back; I have written Mary Ellen Chase. It would be rather like taking your first job working for pay from your mother---a rather uneasy ambivalence, wondering how much praise or criticism came out of love, how much out of impersonal standards of work. I’d much rather prove myself and get confidence at a place which wasn’t already so biased in my favor---this month I’ll apply for Ted to teach creative writing at Harvard (the one place in that faculty where they don’t require PhDs,) and see if I can get a position at Radcliffe, Tufts, or some such; it would be a heavenly dream to live in the other Cambridge, so close to home. CROSS your fingers!
Ted has just had another poem accepted by the Nation for publication sometime before Xmas (it is called “Roarers In a Ring”,* set in a pub on the moors on Xmas eve): this is the 3rd they’ve bought from him! I’m so proud. Also, and keep this under your hat, the woman at the Atlantic Monthly Press children’s dept.* was very interested in his animal fables & said that although, as they stand, they need to be specifically simplified for children, she would be delighted if Ted were willing to try to rewrite them; she sent a fine letter* with suggestions (we’ll have to use the Aldrich children to test stories until we have our own). So Ted is re-writing them this vacation. We are hoping a published book will be the result, if she likes the re-write. We now have 20 manuscripts out between us! I can’t wait till vacation to enjoy, for the first time, our own home!
Turn over for some words on Mr. Crockett – very inadequate – but sincerely meant – do add or subtract, as you think best.
“I only regret that I am not able to be with you today in person to give tribute to Mr. Crockett. Yet it is actually due to Mr. Crockett that I am over here in Cambridge (England) at all, for it was he who first described the beauties of this university town to me and said “You must study there.”* How many of us, I wonder, can in a similar way trace back our choice of college or career, our search after “the best that has been thought
and said”,* and even the very principles of integrity that guide us, to our experience in Mr. Crockett’s classes---an experience of inquiry and discovery not confined within classroom walls, but reaching deeply into our minds and hearts; an experience outlasting the limits of any school year and lighting us through the rest of our lives. Lovingly, and relentlessly, because lovingly, Mr. Crockett demanded the best of us. And if we discovered abilities and interests we never knew we had, it is he who awakened us to them. If we made dreams become realities, it is because of his daily encouragement and unceasing inspiration. His rare wisdom and insight cannot be calculated with tape-measurers; his generous kindness and concern for his pupils cannot be weighed by our inadequate words. Suffice it to say that again and again through the years, whether in thought or in person, we all come back to him. And we come back with the warmest admiration, gratitude, and love. I feel that I can speak for all of us who have ever sat, discussing and debating, about Mr. Crockett’s round-table when I say that Mr. Crockett is far more than the Teacher of the Year: he is the teacher of a lifetime.”
You must report to me how all goes: what is said, etc. I can’t wait to have Ted meet Mr. Crockett. I will write all these good people Christmas letters this next week. Good luck.
Much love,
Sivvy
PS – The quote about the “best thought & said” is Matthew Arnolds’s* definition of culture.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 10 December 1956
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Monday morning
December 10, 1956
Dearest mother . . .
It was so incredible to hear your voice last night---filling our little hallway; I felt very homesick afterwards, though. I do hope we can all see a great deal of each other this next summer; I look so forward to coming home now; our house, our yard, the cape---all looks like a dream of eden to me from here; I will certainly appreciate every little thing from central heating to hygenic kitchens with a new and chastened eye! Warren’s voice was so low over the phone it was very hard to make out what he was saying. Do thank the Aldriches for making it possible to call. I miss you & Warren so much. I don’t know what I’d do without Ted; he is so thoughtful and loving that it is simply amazing. I saw him off this morning for the first time to work (he goes on my bike, it’s about a 20 minute trip) after a good breakfast of fried eggs, bread & butter, cold roast beef & coffee. He is such a wonderful person, I can hardly bear to have him away for the whole day. Those boys must just adore him; he has got them enthusiastically writing little ballads like WH Auden’s, reads them Robert Frost,* and tells them about the history of Russia, of the Jews, America, bull fights---everything. He is staying after school tonight to start rehearsals for some little miracle plays they are putting on. It is so lucky he got such a good job this queer time of year, which means he’ll get paid a good bit before Christmas, to help with our many bills. Do tell everyone I’m writing Christmas letters this week---dear Mrs. Freeman sent a check for $10 and Dot, Joe & Grampy* $20. It all helps so much, & I will write them very soon.
I have to finish writing my Chaucer paper today; we both really were exhausted after this last week---I spent all Friday packing at Whitstead, helping load things on the van, and cleaning house and unpacking here. The living room is lovely now, with the light blue walls, big rather dirty blue patterned sofa (very comfortable) facing the coal fireplace, Braque still life over the dark brown wood mantel, brown & yellow blanket over the cot* under the three windows in front, one nice carved wood cabinet with books & bowl of fruit under mirror, and huge 5 shelved bookcase (shelves 6 feet 6 inches long!) we built with fire bricks, also painted to match walls. Yellow pillows, tablecloth & lampshades make it very sunny. We do our eating & writing in here. The little scruffy kitchen is next on the list to clean up; I hope to scrape off the dirty paint & paint it all light blue next weekend & put in gay red & white checked oilcloth over things. I will have a fine chance to catch up on reading this vacation, and to write, so don’t worry. Ted is so helpful about my studying; he knows all the literature in English there is, and will help me so much on learning how to date things. I am so happy with our little flat; your cooking things came in so handy---especially the copper scrubbers & rubber scrapers & blessed carrot scraper. I use them all the time; Ted is so happy with his brief case. By the way, do tell me if you included a hairbrush in his shaving kit (that is what you are sending, isn’t it?) If not, I want to get him one. The poor dear needs so much---if ever you want to send shirts, his neck size is 16½ & size large. I’m getting him little things for Christmas, & waiting till January sales for big things, like a wool bathrobe. Today I’ll go out & get cookie sheets. It is cold enough in the pantry to be an icebox, but I have no regulator on the oven heat, so I never know how hot it is. I’ll be eager to try my first baking & see how intuition works.
You can imagine how wonderful it is to stay in Cambridge after all our summer travels. Even in this cold gray weather, the peace of not packing & living & eating out is so nice. I’ll really rest now, and work steadily. Unless we get a book or a big story accepted, we most likely will hardly be able to save anything toward next summer, because Ted’s ship fare bulks so big now. I am going to try writing for the women’s magazines this vacation again. I never really worked constantly at it, and I got nice letters from every editor I sent to. Once I could establish that as an income, we’d be fine, what with two teaching salaries coming in. We have sent you off an Xmas present but it may come late; we’ll send Warren a little something, too, but it will be late. We have been so harried up to now we haven’t been able to do anything but work & eat. For the first time in 6 months our lives are coming together in a kind of calm; we have really fought for this through some grim times---only a month ago, Ted was trudging about looking for a job, I did’nt know if Newnham would keep me on, & we weren’t sure of a flat. Now that is all set and after we pay these bills, we’ll be more at ease. I only hope you rest now over the vacation and are plump and healthy when we come home in June. We’ll want to stay in the house at least a week or two before going down to the Cape. I will get Ted’s visa and all the hundreds of triplicate documents off by the end of this month, along with applications for teaching positions. When we get jobs, we can see about an apartment before we go to the Cape for the summer. I got a dear letter from Frank and Louise,* all about their amazing new house; it sounds like a palace. After a year, perhaps two, teaching & saving money in America, Ted & I dream of spending a whole year in sunny Italy writing; by then, maybe one of us will have a writing grant. Do write us often. We do so love to hear from you. Ted is the most wonderful man that ever lived – far above any dreams I ever had!
much much love,
Sivvy
TO Edith & William Hughes
Monday 10 December 1956*
ALS, Family owned
55 Eltisley Avenue
Cambridge
Monday morning
Dear Ted’s mother & dad –
I’ve just seen Ted off after a good breakfast of fried eggs, cold roast beef, bread & butter and coffee, and finished picking up the house. It is so wonderful to be here at last after this hectic month! I moved in Friday & got a big British railways van to move all my heavy things for a few shillings. I’m so glad everything is at last settled until this June – our nice flat, Ted’s fine job, & my grant & study at Newnham. I am so proud of Ted & his job – those little boys must just love him; he has got them writing little ballads, & acting little plays; he teaches them everything from maths, to history of Russia & about bull fights – speaking of bull fights, Ted wanted me to ask you to please send this little pamphlet on bulls he left in his room – he says he thinks it’s over the mantel in his room – it has a picture of a bullfighter on it. The boys want to build a bull-ring out of cardboard! I’m sure having Ted as a teacher will be something they’ll remember all their lives – he’s so handsome & strong, too – not like most teachers; they rea
lly admire him!
I am finishing my last paper for this term now & will be glad to study & write in my own time this next month. Ted is writing another good story & more poems. Did he tell you the editor of the publishing company liked his animal fables very much & asked him to revise them some more for children (parts of them were a bit too bloodthirsty) – & we hope after he revises them they will be pleased enough to buy it & publish it – it looks promising & the editor send a lovely helpful letter. Keep your fingers crossed! We look so forward to coming up to be with you over Christmas!