The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 58
xxx
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 30 June 1960
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
June 30: Thursday
Dear mother,
Here’s the second installment of my airletter, and the note asking to withdraw $1,000 from our Wellesley savings. Leave the odd $50 or $60 in to keep the account open & accumulate a few cents interest for Frieda someday.
Anyhow, somebody else will probably snap the house up. But we will have to think seriously of committing ourselves to a house in a year or two. To complicate matters, Ted (and this is a secret, don’t let him or anyone know I’ve mentioned this) has signified a real desire to take a degree in zoology here in London, an external course at the University. Naturally this would be very difficult in any circumstances, especially if we were still just bleeding rent to landlords. But I do so wish I could see a way clear for him to do it. It would be a job he could give his heart to, & not the fancy literary white-collar work or English-teaching which would make him unhappy. Refer to this as the Plan if you write me about it, so he won’t know I’ve said anything. It would be so wonderful to have a house you could come to next summer---to have plenty of room for once. Of course the isolated attic study (papered & very pleasant) & garden are the main attractions. Also the expandability of the place. The sad thing is that by the time one is amply ready to buy something, the place is gone. And we are only newly come to think of the responsibility of a house, having just weathered the new cares of a baby. As I say, the place has just been converted to a house from flats & newly done up, so all we’d have to do is get lino down in the kitchen & paint the floors (a big job, but we are expert at it now & could do only two floors first). Somehow talking about it makes it seem it might be real. But I feel as jealous about that $5 thousand as about a talisman. And I feel badly about paying about 5% interest or so on a mortgage. What interest did you pay?
Ted’s picture, I gather, appeared along with Auden, Eliot, Spender & MacNeice in the last Sunday Times, though we haven’t seen it. Can you look up a copy at BU library & see it there? Also, his book review about a half-novel on mining is out in the Nation of July 2nd. Maybe you’d like to pick up a copy on a newstand (it’s an American weekly on newsprint paper) & read it.
Well, tell me what you think about all my ramblings.
Congratulate Warren on his exam results.
Blessings on the kittens.
Love,
Sivvy
P.S. Ted’s been offered <£160> (about $450) for his
PPS. Could you dig up our
TO Alice Norma Davis
Friday 9 July 1960
TLS, Smith College Archives
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1, England
July 9, 1960
Miss Davis, Director
Smith College Vocational Office
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
Dear Miss Davis:
I am at present living and looking for work in London, and have applied to the University of Cambridge Women’s Appointments Board for help. The Director there asks me to have documentation about me (grades, job references and so on, I guess) sent to her, and I wonder if you would be so good as to send the necessary information on to her.
The papers should be addressed to:
Mrs. K. M. Baxter, M.A.*
University of Cambridge
Women’s Appointments Board
6, Chaucer Road
Cambridge, England
If I can answer any questions or be of any help in this, do let me know.
Sincerely yours,
Sylvia Plath Hughes (’55)
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 9 July 1960
TLS, Indiana University
Saturday: July 9
Dear mother,
It was good to get your letter with the nice reactions about Frieda’s pictures. I hope the clipping I sent you of Ted enshrined between The Great amuses you too. He heard definitely this week that Indiana University is buying the manuscripts of his first two books for 160 pounds (or $450) which is good. Also, even better news came this week: the BBC Third Programme has accepted his second verse play “The House of Aries” for production this coming fall. Ted wrote the play in the three months after Frieda arrived, amazing when you consider the confusion & weariness of those early days. It is a marvelously funny, moving & serious play full of superb speakable poetry, about a revolution overtaking a sleepy little village. The scene is in the bedridden Mayor’s house. It is relatively short, about 70 typewritten double-spaced pages & with a little cutting should take about an hour on the radio. We are really thrilled by this early commercial acceptance of his dramatic-verse. He has scrapped the first play “The House of Taurus” which really was only a rough rather unpoetic draft, or redraft, of a theme from the Bacchae with an antiquated social message. Interestingly enough, your letter about your dream of Ted’s satire on Kruschev* arrived just before the BBC acceptance and one of the main characters in this play is the revolutionary Captain, a profoundly analyzed military figure. So you are prophetic. I hope his next play may see the stage! With this acceptance & encouragement, it is highly likely! The BBC has also asked to see some poems of mine for a program of New Poetry which is kind of them & I hope they take something. Ted has really done a good bit for them since we’ve come to London: an anthology of animal poems (which he wrote & read the explanations of), a talk with a critic about his poem “Otter” for the Home Service Schools program* (the poems analysed are modern, by Eliot, Yeats, Auden & Hughes!), a long poem about Frieda’s arrival,* his “Rain Horse” story & now the play. If we were in America he couldn’t take such advantage of his growing reputation. The Third Programme is a real blessing, & they pay wonderfully, about $3 a minute for poetry.
I’m enclosing a check from the Nation for $30 for Ted’s bookreview for deposit in our Boston 5¢ savings account.
Frieda is better & better. A wonderful sense of humor & much amused by silly noises & outings. We left her over at Dido’s with the woman living there now who lives rent-free in exchange for taking elegant care of the Merwins Siamese cat & will occasionally babysit for us free. Leo Goodman, Ann Davidow’s genius, drove us to see “Roots”,* the middle part of a working-class trilogy by one of the very new young British play wrights. Very realistic, down to the eating of icecream & pouring potato water out of the potatoes. I kept thinking how much more amusing a play Ted could have done. Eliot has offered to read & discuss any plays in verse he does which is highly kind of him. My one aim is to keep Ted writing full-time. When I think how easily his uncle could help him until he gets making money I see red, but it is precisely one’s aunts & rich uncles who won’t help. The mad cousin barbara gets diamond rings & poodles, which she forgets she has in a day!
xxx
Sivvy
TO George MacBeth*
Saturday 9 July 1960
TLS, BBC Written Archives Centre
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1
July 9, 1960
George MacBeth, Esq.
THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Broadcasting House
London W.1
Dear George MacBeth,
I’m enclosing a group of unpublished poems* as I promised to do the other day when you called. I hope you find something you like.
With all good wishes,
Sincerely yours,
Sylvia Plath
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 19 July 1960
TLS, Indiana University
Tuesday: July 19
Dear mother,
We received the $1,000 check in good order & have deposited it here. Tha
nk you for sending it so soon. Both Ted & I are awestruck and immensely proud of your studies & the triple & quadruple life you seem to be leading. Housewife, teacher, student, mother, mistress of four cat-kittens (I do hope this number will diminish): I feel extremely lazy by comparison. I know how difficult it must be to be a novice among people who are already teachers. Don’t let the jargon and references to things you haven’t heard of bother you: every field seems to delight in this kind of mystifying doubletalk, and perhaps sociology and statistics are among the worst in this. It is common knowledge that much of the stuff is unreadable, pedantic & bad jargon English. Soon you will probably feel “in”, after finding your way around in articles and reference books. I am skeptical of people whose God is testing, knowing how a cold, worry, or simply a lack of the right priming can make results go haywire. So keep several grains of salt handy, & your fine perspective!
I have the baby outofdoors downstairs in her carriage, where I can see her from the windows up here. It has been a ghastly July: rain every day, off and on, in great sudden gushes. The minute I rush down with Frieda in a “bright interval” a cold wind comes up with black clouds. It is raw and chilly all the time. I am very homesick for days that start out blue & clear & stay that way, and miss being tan, as I have always been in the summer. I am a horrid pale yellow. O England. I probably haven’t written for a week as I have been suffering from a nasty boil on my lower lip: very very painful, and hideous, red, oozing blood & guck, so bad I didn’t want to show my face in the street for fear of scaring children. I went twice a day to the doctor for penicillin injection & took penicillin pills, & just had to let it ooze. Now at last the swelling is gone, and the infection, although the new skin is crinkly & sore. The whole treatment cost me about 25 cents, the token fee for two boxes of penicillin shots! Thank god I live in a welfare state. Frieda continues with her monthly shots & my clinic visits for free advice. The lady doctor there is a handsome woman with eight children.
Ted got his nice check for $450 for his manuscripts this week, plus the information that the BBC will pay him $330 for his hour verse play, much more than we expected. Yes, they will do it with actors, sound effects, the lot. He is just finishing up the libretto for the opera of this modern Chinese composer we met at Yaddo, based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a difficult project. I received a lovely silver baby cup from Marion & Ruthie and a monogrammed set of silver (knife, fork, spoon) & inscribed aluminum baby cup (Rebecca . . . well, she’ll learn her middle name that way) from grampy. I’ll write thanks to both this week. Grace Berry* also sent a nice pajama set, which I’ve written her about. We both get so excited at gifts for the baby. By the way, I’ve received a note from Harrod’s that Mildred Norton has asked them to find out what I’d like for a baby gift. Should I go over to the store & look around their baby dept? I’m rather at a loss as to how much she means the gift to be & don’t want to be excessive. I’m thinking of looking for a folding playpen for Frieda. Her latest trick is holding her head up when lying on her stomach and looking all around. She squirms all over her crib & will yell for help when she gets a leg or an arm through the slats. Your Spock must be very different from mine (which is the revised, enlarged pocket edition): “Pacifier” begins section P in the index & he devotes 4 pages to praising it. Frieda won’t look at hers anymore (it helped her over the colicky period very well) but settles on her thumb. Her eyes are still bright blue & she is in wonderful humor, laughing, enjoying being bounced on the bed, propped up sitting & talked to. She has a whole new range of voice noises.
I am writing Mrs. Prouty today, very sorry to hear she is so ill. Keep me posted on her progress, do. Tell Warren how pleased we are to hear his paper is done: tell him to sit out in the American sun for me. Are you going to vote for Kennedy? I’ll disown you if you vote for Nixon.
Last night Ted & I had Leo Goodman for supper again, & he took us to a fine performance of Brecht’s “Galileo” at the new Mermaid theater overlooking the Thames, all about Galileo’s selling out to the church, recanting his views to live in physical comfort. We parked the baby with our sometime free-sitter, the woman living at the Merwins. Do let us know if you see any reviews of Ted’s book in America.
Ted joins me in sending best love,
Sivvy
TO Alan Anderson
Saturday 23 July 1960
TLS, Pierpont Morgan Library
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1
July 23, 1960
Dear Alan Anderson,
The pamphlets are absolutely beautiful. Ted and I are delighted with them, and especially with the handsome way you make up your covered booklets.*
It must be an immense satisfaction to have a library of such finely printed work. The mood---form and color---of the jacket designs are perfectly suited to the atmosphere of poem and story, I think.
Once again, thank you for your kindness and generosity in printing the winter ship.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Hughes
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 2 August 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Tuesday: August 2
Dear mother,
I was just about to set off with the pram to the cleaners and grocery stores around the corner when a cloudburst arrived, so I’ve come back to wait till the sky clears and thought I’d improve the hour by writing a letter to you. I’m glad Mrs. Prouty is keeping in close touch with you. I’m sure your notes and such mean much to her. We’re planning to write again soon and send her reproductions of a few of the baby snaps we sent you when we have more made up. Right now Frieda is dressed in a pale yellow dress bordered with white lace & matching yellow pants all ruffled with lace (a gift from Marcia, outgrown by her Cary: she sent me a bunch of dresses via a friend of hers last week for which I’m very grateful), lying on her stomach on a quilt on the livingroom floor, staring up at me with her big blue eyes. She holds her head up all the time now when on her stomach & loves to ride this way in her carriage, like a figurehead, looking at the leaves and people. Just this week she’s become interested in the rattles (I have two) and reaches for them with intent concentration, grabs, waves them, and sucks them. She is also grabbing at faces, particularly intrigued by noses. We hope to borrow a pen from a friend of Ted’s. I wish you could see her now. She is such a responsive merry little baby.
I think I got a lovely solution to Aunt Mildred’s gift ticket at Harrod’s. I really wanted one of those little hot water plates I remember we had as children. The baby has three cups---two silver (from Ruthie & Patsy) & one aluminum (from grampy) and two sets of silver, the baby set from Mrs. Pulling & the bigger one from grampy, so I did want a plate. Luckily Harrod’s baby department (which is very fancy & expensive, with adorable imported clothes) was having a display of imported French hot water plates & I fell in love with them & got one with “La Ronde” painted on it and a little ring of children dancing among flowers & trees on the white china ground. The hole you pour the hot water in is stoppered by a white china rabbit. It only costs 15shillings 9pence (about $2.25) so I feel I’ve got just what I want & need at reasonable cost.
Helga Huws’ German mother is visiting them: speaking not a word of English, very nice. She’ll probably come again next summer so you could have conversations with her. She is minding the two babies tonight while the four of us go to see the Lunts* in Durrenmatt’s play “The Visit”.* Ted is doing two radio broadcast recordings today & tomorrow: one a conversation with a critic about his poem “The Otter” for a school service, the other a reading of a poem & a speech from his play* for a New Poems broadcast. Since moving in here this February we’ve earning well over a thousand dollars for our British writing account, which is nice. The BBC is very helpful.
You sound to be working much too hard if you have to refuse dinner engagements! I am so furious at BU, their whole mechanical behavior over abolishing your department. Just what did that charming gentleman you were interviewed by ha
ve to say about future work for you? Will there be an opening at BU for work in teaching reading? They damn well owe it to you. Is the German, even part-time, utterly out? You should be having a summer off after this year of teaching & I am grieved you are working twice as hard. What are the prospects of a job in this work: is it all remedial? Please keep us informed about this. Wouldn’t it be at all possible to teach shorthand & typing at another school in Boston? Surely they must need medical shorthand teachers locally. Well, enough about that. I think BU has behaved abominably.
Sunday we actually were out-of-doors for a whole day, seeing Leo Goodman off for America, lying on top of Primrose Hill in the sun. Ted actually got a sunburn & I the merest shade of brown. We had the baby naked on a blanket in the sun for a very brief while & she loved it. I only wish we would get a spell of such weather so I could let her play about naked on the grass. Next year it would be so nice if Ted & I would go away for a week to Wales or Cornwall and you could live here with Frieda. Of course she may not want to be left, but we could try a day first & see how she does. I look so forward to having you come over & enjoy her. I have discovered a delightful couple who run an art gallery in Camden Town,* a rare thing in this district, & spent all Saturday morning talking to them & going through the husband’s drawings & paintings. I want to buy a miniature of a witch, a lovely thing, for Ted’s birthday: only $3. If only I had a fortune I’d subsidize artists by buying their paintings. Well, into a raincoat & off to the shops. Love to you & Warren.