The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 28
SEASON’S GREETINGS.
from Sylvia / & Ted.
Dear Elly . . .
It has come to this. I am sure you’ve moved 3 times since we last saw you, don’t trust any of the 3 NY addresses I have for you & only have a vague Ouija board flash that you live in a laurel wreath. I am alive still, or at least much improved. I’ve had Aaron, Fisher, Dunn* & Hornbeak sit in on my classes & in a gossipy way learn they think all is very lively & fine & I should be asked back in Feb. Only I’m not coming. I am looking to June 1st & my restored humanity with stoic but starved mien. Will creak into writing again & never stop – will even read what I want – which I don’t have time to do now. Would love to hear from you – any chance of seeing you sometime from Dec. 31st–Jan 5th when we’ll be back here from Wellesley?
Do write –
Love,
Sylvia
TO Gerald & Joan Hughes
December 1957*
ALS in greeting card,* Indiana University
SEASON’S GREETINGS
& much love / from Sylvia / & / Ted.
Dear Gerald & Joan . . .
Two stags leaving gold footprints & a gold sky full of snowflakes to say our “Merry Christmas” to you. My teaching turns to take up most of my time so far – keeping a week ahead of my 70 girls like a fox eluding the panting hounds & interviewing sobbing or angry or effusive ones, correcting avalanches of papers. Manage to cook a lot now, though, which I love – so Ted & I regale fellow-writers & teachers on wine or tea, casseroles & spaghetti sups, pineapple upside down cakes – my one main way of being creative, unless making up classes on DH Lawrence & Dostoevsky could be called remotely that. But come June 1st I’ll be writing again at last, trying to finish my own first book of poems this summer & begin some stories. After a short dry spell, Ted is producing poems prolifically again & we hope to live & write in Boston next year, away from this grove of academe. Will write more during this vacation.
Love to you –
sylvia
1958
TO Warren Plath
Monday 6 January 1958
TLS (photocopy), Indiana University
Apartment 3 rear
337 Elm Street
Northampton, Mass.
January 6, 1958
Dearest Warren,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Ted & I are so pleased with our lovely tablecloth which is gay and sunny with our pottery and stainless steel. Now that we’ve left Wellesley for 5 months, we won’t be able to read your wonderful letters to mother unless she sends them on, so do talk to us on paper now & then and I’ll try to reciprocate.
Our post-Christmas teaching is on me, and I have to slave today and tomorrow outlining discussion questions for 6 hours on Crime & Punishment, my present punishment for the crime of being out with pneumonia for the 3 past weeks. Most annoying, as I hadn’t even had a cold all term, but I missed the last week of classes and all my vacation during which I had meant, as we all do, to catch up. I still have a good deal of battle-fatigue and a cough which keeps me awake, but hope to start teaching the day after tomorrow with fingers crossed that the sunny clear weather we’ve been having keeps up for two more weeks. Then it can blizzard during the exam period of two weeks while I try to outline my program for the 2nd semester & correct midyears snug in our little apartment, which I am really becoming quite fond of.
I just told our department chairman* this morning that I wasn’t planning to come back next year---I waited until I heard they’d voted unanimously for my reappointment---and he was very sorry & surprised but I practically skipped out. I’m dying for June 1st & my apprenticeship to writing for a whole year. Now that it’s 1958 it seems much nearer, as if I’ll actually live to it, and I can enjoy my teaching much more seeing light ahead.
Ted’s life has picked up surprisingly, too. He has just gotten, in the New Year, his 3rd poem accepted by the New Yorker,* which will mean about $25 as it’s a very short one, his first acceptance of a prose short story (8 pages) from Jack and Jill* which is a delightful fairy-tale for $50! We were amazed & joyous: it opened a really new market, a tough market, but means he has the encouragement to go on working on children’s stories & books!
Also, after spending a total of about $45 on lessons, & license, Ted got his driver’s license in Northampton today. Isn’t that fine! I feel much relieved, as I can share driving with him & not take it all on my own shoulders, and he is very pleased.
We’ve earned, between us, since September 1st, over $700 on writing! Not bad, especially since I haven’t written anything new or even tried. June 1st begins my all out effort! Even I am getting ideas for children’s stories.* We are saving our writing money in a separate account & not touching it. Hope maybe to get a writing fellowship to help us to Italy the year after our Boston year, if we produce enough next year.
Ted also was offered out of the blue a part-time or full-time instructorship at the Univ. of Massachusetts in English this 2nd semester,* which would enable us to save money, as my salary’s been barely enough to live on what with unexpected doctor’s expenses. He’s willing to take on full-time if he can get a small senior creative writing course, in addition to sophomore lit. & freshman comp., which would cut his paper-load. We’re waiting to hear which it will be. I feel much better, & so does he, about saving something to collect bank interest, as he should be able to save his whole term’s salary if we live spartanly. We look so forward to moving to Boston if we can find a good place & seeing much of you next year.
Love & write –
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 13 January 1958
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
Monday night
January 13, 1958
Dearest mother . . .
I suppose the two of us had rather rough weeks. I managed my full amount of classes and a faculty meeting last week, but it really took a lot of energy out of me, as I had no reserve of voltage to spare. Also, I had to prepare my work for the next day every night, so by the time Saturday came I was really beat. But we slept till noon on Sunday, which was a lovely icy blue day and went for a 5 mile walk which cheered us no end. I am still inclined to be rather depressed, a kind of backwash of convalescence, I guess, but should have a chance to rest up after this week while preparing for the 2nd semester before the exams come in.
Elly Friedman came over Saturday night with her latest boyfriend and I cooked a nice dinner for the four of us: white wine, clams & sour cream & potato chips for appetizer, roast beef, corn, mashed potatoes with onion, and salad, lemon meringue pie and coffee. I was pleased with myself, managing that after a full working week. Elly’s Leonard* is a change from the usual mixed-up silly boys she’s known before. Both Ted & I were delighted with him: he seems to be a handsome Jew, with no vanity, very strong and silent. He taught English at Michigan last year & is now writing & living with his parents. Ironically, Elly doesn’t seem good enough for him: he is very intelligent and deep, but I suppose that is why they are attracted, she being so extroverted & actressy. We all saw a good movie* by Orson Welles, starring him, “Citizen Kane”, with excellent photography, so it took my mind off weariness & my work.
I recently had a two hour and longer talk with one of my worst problem children, a girl who refused to talk in class & objected to being called on. She came in prepared to be very much on the defensive (she would whisper in class & make fun of other girls) but we got along immediately & I was very proud of my psychology & I think she left feeling excellently treated, although I told her several unpleasant things, such as that she had chosen to get an E in classwork, and that I’d like her to move into another section. Selfishly, I just wanted to get rid of her as she distracted the other girls, but I made a completely different point of it. We had also a good talk on religion & the course books, and I felt, ironically enough, that she w
as a kindred spirit of sorts. She wanted, ironically also, to stay in my class, but I managed to get around that, too. I do feel I am building up a pretty good relation with most of my students and am feeling some rather well-placed conceit as one of the more favored of the freshman English teachers. They are really good girls.
Did I tell you Ted has his driver’s license. He passed with flying colors and is very elated about it. He hasn’t heard whether he’ll be teaching full or half time at the University. They really went all out to get him an 11 hour full-time program, with 2 soph lit. courses, one freshman english, and one small creative senior writing course, a very rare program for a beginner, but it will be very tough work. In a way, it will be just as good if he gets the half-time program & feels some freedom, but the pay we’ll set aside for our projected year in Italy.
Do drop us a line when you can. Keep well & don’t take on any extra work too soon!
P.S. Ted loves his bathrobe, which is a lesson to me never to jump too hastily to conclusions. I knew he’d enjoy it once he started wearing it & now he’s always in it. Enclosed, the check for it. Do cash it right away, to help us keep accounts.
XXXXXX
sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 20 January 1958
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
Monday
January 20
Dearest mother,
Thanks so much for letting us share this letter of Warren’s. He does sound to be leading a rich, vital life. I’m enclosing his letters with your charge coins, the two heavy ones taped to a card.
My classes came to an end on Saturday, and I just woke up this noon with the sense of being knocked out cold for the weekend. I must have been really exhausted all this time, and rejoice at a week of no teaching and resting, even though I have to prepare rapidly for next semester.
Ted hasn’t heard yet whether he’ll be teaching half time or full time, we rather hope it’s full time now, and his classes begin in ten days, so I hope we’ll find out soon. One of his scheduled books is “Crime and Punishment”, and I’ve just finished two weeks of lectures on it, so he can use my notes. Very convenient.
Friday night we went to dinner at the faculty club as the guests of a young, rather sad nice woman, who once left teaching at Smith to try to write for a year, but who came back. Then to a wonderful suspense movie by Hitchcock, “The Lady Vanishes”,* which had me jumping at shadows behind doors for a few days. Saturday night we drove over to meet some people on the U. of Mass. faculty. Very different people. Somehow pathetic, broken, wistful, or just pedantic and cranky. At least Ted was relieved, & the prospect of work doesn’t worry him now, as these people are hardly genii. But rather boring. Anyhow, he has some really good books to teach, & the recommendation will be very helpful in teaching jobs in Europe.
A week from today I have to give my midyear exam, & then correct 70 papers & make out midyear grades. But just not having to go out & teach is restful, and a pleasant change. Halfway through! And my whole attitude to teaching is changed. Simply knowing that I’m leaving in June has freed me to enjoy it & have a casual attitude which is evidently catching in a good way, as my 3 o’clock class in particular is more enjoyable, and I have a good feeling of general class sympathy, with the exception of course, of a few bored or stubborn ones. If I can just get ahead of myself in preparation things should ease up. But how I long to get at writing. To break into the pain of beginning again and get over the hump into something rich: my old life of poems and stories and articles, so once again I can look for the mails with some reason for eagerness.
Perhaps Monday March 31st and Tuesday April 1st Ted & I can come down to look at houses or apartments on Beacon Hill. We’d could move in on the 1st of June, I think. Or the 1st of July, if necessary. But I should think in June we’d find more people moving out. Have you heard of any rumors? We want to leave here on June 1st if we can. We want to know Boston like the back of our hand before we’re through.
Ted’s had two more short poems accepted by the Sewanee Review as of today, which with their last acceptance of 2 makes a total of 4 to come out and “introduce” him to their readers.
Don’t forget to drop us a line. Take care of yourself! Your winter commuting sounds ghastly, Can’t Marion cook for a while? Ted is concerned too. They’d make you lecture on your deathbed there! Do write.
Much love,
Sivvy
TO Edith & William Hughes
Sunday 2 February 1958
TLS, Family owned
Sunday afternoon
February 2nd
Dear Ted’s mother & dad . . .
You have no idea how we love getting your letters: every time they come we drop what we’re doing and Ted sits down & reads them aloud to me. I like hearing about every little thing from the candy melting together in the candy jars at the little shop and what kind of weather is blowing over the moors---I loved our days up at the Beacon so much that I look on it as a real home & think of Ted’s big desk waiting for us to write on it. So you can imagine how I like every word about it.
Ted has probably told you that he has a very good job for the next four months as Instructor of English at the University of Massachusetts in the next town, about 15 miles away. He came through his driving license test with flying colors and now drives my brother’s solid little blue Plymouth car to work each day. He works from 8 am to 11 am on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and from 3-4 pm on Monday, Wednesday & Friday, but is going to try to get those afternoon classes on the other days so he’ll only have to drive over 3 days a week instead of 6. You can see how its a much easier schedule than his teaching boys at Cambridge. He has one course of freshmen, two of sophomores, & one creative writing class of seniors, which is very special for a first-year college teacher to get: all the members of the department who have been working there 10 years wish they had it. Ted just walked right in, with his book & good reviews, & they gave him this class, which sounds so interesting that I’d like one of that sort too: people who are really interested in writing are fun to teach.
It is very unusual for anyone without a Phd. (a doctor’s degree) to get college-teaching jobs in America, but Ted’s book is a strong recommendation. He could probably teach at either Amherst or Mount Holyoke: the first a boy’s college, the latter a girl’s college, much like Smith, if he wanted to next year, as they’ve both shown interest in him (they are 2 of the best colleges in America) but Ted wants not to teach but get some other kind of work (without homework or extra preparation) in Boston next year while I write for a change, and he’ll have time to write too. Then, in the fall of 1959 we hope to come back to Europe for a year & look forward to visiting you then. This is a dream, but if we save what Ted earns this semester I think we can manage it. I hope to have a book written by the end of next year in Boston, so if I do, it will help.
My week and new semester begins tomorrow. I have been resting as much as possible, as the pneumonia left me really exhausted, not sick, but just very easily tired, so Ted has been taking very good care of me. I have taken on an extra little job in addition to my regular teaching which is going to an advanced course in American literature* which is taught by a world-famous critic,* and helping him correct most of his exams throughout the semester: I’ll have to read all the books by Hawthorne, Melville* and Henry James, but they are good, so I should enjoy it and a few hundred extra dollars will be very welcome. I’ve just finished correcting my own 70 blue-booklets of midyear exams & am resting my eyes on the scenery outside our window: red tile rooftops and two big gray squirrels chasing each other from branch to branch of the tall bare elm trees.
Mother came up to visit our apartment for the first time this last weekend & stayed overnight with the lady downstairs. She thought it was a very fine place, with plenty of room, light and airy, and we are pleased with it too. We count on our fingers: 4 months more of work & then Boston, more writing and easier if less challenging, jobs for our bread & butter
.
Ted has written two good short stories which we’ve sent out to a magazine: he can be a very good prose writer, too, I am sure of it, so I am suggesting subjects for him to write on about his own background in the moors which will be of great interest to the Americans and hope someday he may collect a book of Yorkshire tales. When we come back to visit you we really must make up a whole notebook of all you know and all you remember.
Has Ted told you about the enormous snow sculptures made at the Winter Carnival at his University? He drove me over to see them yesterday and some were very impressive, several times taller than a man: one showed a drunkard leaning against a lamppost and looking at a huge pink elephant made out of snow (I have no idea how they colored it all) which reached up to the 2nd story of the building. Another showed two giants carving out a lacy snowflake, again, twice as high as human beings. There was a great prostrate dragon of snow with St. George standing by it, and a coach with six horses and Cinderella stepping out of it: very impressive: I wish you could have seen it.
Well, I must get back to work, so send much love to you both and will write soon . . .
love,
sylvia
TO Edith & William Hughes
Friday 7 February 1958*
ALS, Emory University
Hello! You should see what a wonderful teacher Ted makes! He has got all his courses scheduled for Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday, so he only has to teach a 3-day week & doesn’t have too much outside correcting & preparation to do. I am feeling much stronger & although still a bit washed-out on energy from the pneumonia I am finishing my first week of 2nd term this week with a much greater feeling of ease & enjoyment than I’ve ever had – I really am very fond of my 70 girls & will enjoy teaching them plays & poetry for the rest of the year. It is snowing now – great lacy flakes. We are going to a movie of Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers” tonight.*
Love to you & birthday greetings for the 13th!