by Sylvia Plath
All good wishes.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Eric Walter & Edith White
Monday 3 September 1962*
ALS,* McMaster University
P.S. Dear Eric & Dodo –
I am just through a week of influenza & about as strong as a dead codfish, but hope to be well enough in two weeks or so to really recover on Richard Murphy’s boat. Poetic justice I think. I am desolate not to see you & the Sweeneys, I had so been looking forward to the dinner! The Nolans* are a great consolation – visionary cartography. Love to you both & Jack & Mairé when they come.
Sylvia
TO Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse Beuscher
Tuesday 4 September 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Smith College
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
September 4, 1962
Dear Doctor Beuscher,
I’d be awfully grateful just to have a postcard from you saying you think any paid letter sessions between us are impractical or unhelpful or whatever, but something final. Believe me, that would be a relief. It is the feeling of writing into a void that never answers, or may at any moment answer, that is difficult. I’d rather just have you say “shut up” than feel my words dangling in space.
I thought for a time I would just give Ted his head, and could laugh at the lot of it and be my own woman. Any kind of caution or limit makes him murderous. But what he does is go each week to London, spend lots of money on himself, then come home (why does he come home?) and lay into us: this is a Prision, I am an Institution,* the children should never have been born. He may need a flogging post but I’m damned if I’m going to be it. I started having blackouts last week & made the mistake of asking him to put off his weekly spree a day and help me, as I also had two sick guests. He said I was blackmailing him with my health, so I quickly drove him to the train. When he came back I had galloping influenza, chills & fever of 103 nonstop for 3 days, a real experience, very British, which my doctor assured me there was no medical aid for. Why he had nursed families of 9 all with influenza, and they just lay about and died for a week until one of them could crawl up & brew tea. I see now I can’t convince Ted I can change or have changed. His lies are incredible & continuous---daily I find out his accounts of meeting people in London, dining, etc. are all made up. I think this may be because he unconsciously so resents my possessing any part of his life he cant bear to tell about even small things truly because I thus possess the knowledge of them. But I am so weak with this bloody influenza, and the prospect of being forbidden ever to go to a play, party, dinner, movie or anything with him is so mean, I think the only thing that may dent into his head I do not honestly want to eat him is for me to get a legal separation. The idea of no husband, 2 babies, a 15 room house & 2½ acres is a grim one, but I am no martyr & I want my health back & am sick of being called a possessive institution, e.g. an old womb. I have an awful lot to distract me, and a legal separation may just set Ted whirling into this wonderful wonderful world where there are only tarts and no wives and only abortions and no babies and only hotels and no homes. Well bless him. Your last letter was a big help, but I think Ted is trying to drive me by his behavior week by week to separate, he hasn’t quite got the guts to do it all by himself, so I shall have to get a lawyer & help him.
The whole influenza business made me furious. I got it from these bloody guests who were to help me with the babies in exchange for room & board, & of course it looked like blackmail. I begged the doctor to get me a home-help so Ted could go off freely, but instead he sonorously talked to him of manly responsibilities, the old red flag to the old bull. Now I am having Ted try & get a nanny down from London for a week or two. Then I shall try to get this cottage on our property made livable & try to get a full-time nanny. Then I shall write novels, learn to ride a horse, which I am just doing, and try to do more stuff for the radio & take a day a week in London for plays, movies, art shows & shopping. That’s half a year away, but it keeps me going. And I am a hell of a success with poppies, nasturtiums & sunflowers. I’ve got an absolute octopus of nasturtiums crawling across the court. And bees. I’ve just bottled 12 jars of my own honey: Next year it should be a hundred. Then maybe I’ll go into business.
I wish to hell I could have a few talks with you. Nobody else is any good to me, I’m sick of preamble. That’s why I thought if I paid for a couple of letters I might start going ahead instead of in circles. But please just say it won’t work or you’ve a full schedule or something. I would be glad of that definiteness.
With love,
Sylvia
TO Judith Jones
Wednesday 5 September 1962
TLS (aerogramme), University of Texas at Austin
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
September 5, 1962
Mrs. Judith B. Jones
ALFRED A. KNOPF
501 Madison Avenue
New York 22, New York
U.S.A.
Dear Mrs. Jones,
Thank you for your letter* and all the contents. I am glad that you sent on the Marianne Moore letter,* I do like to see everything. I am sorry Miss Moore eschews the dark side of life to the extent that she feels neither good nor enjoyable poetry can be made out of it. She also, as I know, eschews the sexual side of life, and made my husband take out every poem in his first book with a sexual reference before she would put her name to endorse it. But she is a scrupulous letter writer, so bless her for that! I’d love to have a list of the poets you sent my book to, just to know who has seen it. A very full and favorable review appeared in the Sewanee Review this spring,* some time about then, but as it was of the English edition I suppose you wouldn’t have seen it.
The novel is as good as done. Heinemann will be publishing it over here. I’ll get on to them to send you a copy in a few weeks when it’s ready. I hope a few things in it will make you laugh.
Thanks very much for your kind concern.
Yours sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Marvin & Kathy Kane
Wednesday 5 September 1962*
ALS, Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Devon.
Wednesday
Dear Marvin & Kathy,
Thank you for the lovely card. It must be heaven there.* Since you left I have had terrible influenza, fevers of over 103° & killing chills & have been able to swallow nothing but water, so am very weak, hence the shortness of this, I can hardly write. I am forwarding 2 letters separately.
Have you any idea where Frieda’s dolly pram is? Did she leave it at the playground? We can’t find it any where & she is desolate.
Good news, we have got a nanny to come while we are in Ireland so you need not worry about breaking your holiday. We would have had no rest worrying about your health & didn’t want to spoil your good time.
Love,
Sylvia
TO Elizabeth Sigmund
Saturday 8 September 1962
TLS, Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Saturday: Sept. 8
Dear Elizabeth,
Forgive me for not writing sooner. Since I saw you last,* I have had a ghastly week of influenza, nonstop fevers of over 103° alternating with killing chills and unable to swallow anything but water. I have never really been ill before, the time I had double pneumonia was nothing to this, and now I have lost a great deal of weight and am so stupidly weak I can do nothing. I have been wanting and wanting to write a note, but just fall back in bed after the smallest task. Now I am still very wobbly, but better.
After eating us out of house and home for over two weeks, and losing Frieda’s brand new doll’s pram our “guests”, who were to help with the children, left for a holiday in Cornwall. Luckily we were able to get an expensive but reliable nanny from an agency in London in
the nick of time, so are planning to leave for a week in Ireland next Tuesday. It is now a health trip for me. I see now that no matter how awful anything is, if you have health, you are still blessed.
When I come back I shall bring over a load of potatoes and onions. I long to see you. Frieda talks so often of “Baby James” and has begged me to get her a “lil tiny piano” like the one she saw at your house.
Please send on my copy of David’s book.* I’m dying to read it, it looks just the thing to cheer me up, all about murder.
Love to all,
Sylvia
TO Richard Murphy
Saturday 8 September 1962
ALS, University of Tulsa
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
September 8
Dear Richard,
Thank you so much for your good letter. We have got a nanny for the babies so can leave here with easy heart. We plan to take the train to Holyhead Tuesday night, cross to Dublin by night, say hello to Jack Sweeney & come by rail to Galway Wednesday eveningish.* Shall call as soon as we arrive. We would love to stay in your cottage.* I don’t know when I have looked so forward to anything.
Warmest good wishes,
Sylvia
TO Ruth Fainlight
Saturday 8 September 1962
TLS, Ruth Fainlight
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
Saturday: September 8
Dearest Ruth,
I have been wanting so long to write you and now I have your new good letter. The reason I haven’t written is because I’ve had a ghastly summer ending in a bout of influenza which just about did for me---I never had it before, nonstop fevers of over 103° alternating with killing chills and too weak to drink anything but water. The doctor told me something I didn’t know which is that there is nothing modern medicine can do to relieve or combat flu, but he is a bastard & maybe that is not true. Anyhow, I have lost a great deal of weight & am worried about my bloody lungs, as I had double pneumonia not too long ago. And I am weak as a dead cod. I wake, thinking, now I will jump up, feed Nicholas, bath & change him, feed Frieda, do a laundry, figure the income tax and whee, one bout of coughs and I am back on the pillow the color of a French bean with the sweats, the shakes, crap to it all. I hate sickness & being sick & this has been a great blow to me.
One good thing is that I think Ted will set us up for 3 months in Spain this winter, way down south around where Ben is.* For December, January & February presumably. He still has officially to take the Maugham grant, so this is an excuse to do it, plus the fact that I don’t think I could stand an English winter just yet. Now I beg you to give me any practical hints you can think of to make it easier traveling by car with kids. What route did you take, where stay, did you reserve ahead, etc. etc. Ted never will make a plan till the day ahead, but I would like to know what I can expect. Are there Paddipads* in Spain. Strained babyfoods? Is there a God? Where is Franco?* You are such a practical one, Ruth, and Alan too. Maybe you can tell me some things to expect & plan for.
Of course it is much easier with a nursing baby. Nicholas has, since I’ve been ill, been on bottles, although I hope to have weaned him to a cup by the time we leave. I suppose we should have a Primus* to boil milk & water. And make Farex* & heat tins. Maybe I can train him to crap out the window. He is gorgeous now. Big dark eyes, hair that looks as if it wants to curl & get light, and bouncey, creepy, fascinated by grass, which he eats madly if he can lay a finger on it. I adore him. Ted never touches him, nor has since he was born. Very curious. I would love to get Nick & David together now, like we did that time on the bed. They could probably Greek wrestle. Maybe we can meet, if we come to Spain in December. I hope to get a babyminder there. It is almost impossible here. I am going to fix the cottage so it is livable & try next spring to hire a nanny. Have a 2nd novel I’m dying to write and no time. Which I suppose is better than lots of time & no novel. I miss you so much, all 3. It was such fun having you here. Please say we can come visit,* or you come, when we are in Spain. And please write. I enclose a battered copy of your Elm poem, Ruth.
Love to all,
Sylvia
Sylvia Plath
Court Green
North Tawton, Devon.
Elm
(for Ruth Fainlight)
I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.
Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?
Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it!
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.
All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.
Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is the rain now, this big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.
Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.
The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.
I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me!
I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?---
Its snaky acids hiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.
TO Kathy Kane
Friday 21 September 1962
TLS, Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Devon.
Friday, September 21
Dear Kathy,
It was so cheering to have your letter when I came back. Actually the nanny had forwarded it to Ireland, so I had to wait till today for it to be forwarded back, and when I asked who the letter she had forwarded was from, in case it was urgent, she said it was from somebody in London. So you see you are safe, she & everybody thinks you are there.
I found the little pram, many thanks. The nanny* was wonderful, the children were thriving when I came home & everything spick and span. I am trying to get her back for another week now, as I have to go to London to see a solicitor.* I will wait till I see you to say anything, but the end has come. It is like amputating a gangrenous limb---horrible, but one feels it is the only thing to do to survive.*
I am very interested in the poetry tour. Would there be room for me & the babies to pay you a short visit? There is no question of Ted coming. Do you have a phone I could call you at? Or could you write & say. Perhaps Monday October 1st? I should have the business done by then I hope. Do write anyway.
Love to both,
Sylvia
TO Richard Murphy
Friday 21 September 1962
TLS, University of Tulsa
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
/> September 21
Dear Richard,
I am enclosing my unused ticket from Galway to Dublin, good for three months, in hopes that you or Seamus or Owen* may find it of use. I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality & the wonderful wonderful food of Mrs. Coyne.* The boats & the sea were like a great cure for me.
May I say two things? My health depends on leaving England & going to Ireland, & the health of the children. I am very reluctant to think that the help you gave with one hand you would want to take away with the other. I am in great need of a woman like Kitty Marriott* & if there is one thing my 30th year has brought it is understanding of what I am, and a sense of strength and independence to face what I have to. It may be difficult to believe, but I have not and never will have a desire to see or speak to you or anyone else. I have wintered in a lighthouse & that sort of life is balm to my soul. I do not expect you to understand this, or anything else, how could you, you know nothing of me. I do not want to think you were hypocritical when showing me the cottages, but it is difficult to think otherwise. Please let me think better of you than this.
Secondly, I was appalled to realize you did not understand we were joking when talking about my writing New Yorker poems about Connemara. I would not do that even if I were able, and as you know I have not written a poem for over a year & cannot write poems anyway when I am writing prose. So there is no question of your literary territory being invaded. My novel is set in Devon, and it is this I hope to finish at Glasthule.
I feel very sorry to have to retract my invitation to visit us at Court Green as it would have given me great pleasure to have you see it---I think you have a feeling for land, and this is very beautiful land & I imagine I feel about it the way you do about your hookers---proud of it, and of what I have made of it and hope to make of it, and eager to feel it is appreciated, not hated. But Ted will not be here, as I had thought when I asked you, and when he is not here I can see no-one. My town is as small & watchful as yours & a little cripple hunchback with a high black boot lives at the bottom of my lane & all day & all night watches who comes & goes. This is really very funny. There is nothing for the poor woman to see. So I am very sensible of your concerns. I shall try to bring a nanny with me in December & then maybe get someone to live in & help with the children, & you shall see neither hide nor hair of anybody. Other people only get in the way of my babies & my work & I am as dedicated to both as a nurse-nun. Please have the kindness, the largeness, to say you will not wish me ill nor keep me from what I clearly and calmly see as the one fate open. I would like to think your understanding could vault the barrier it was stuck at when I left.